LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OP 
CALIFORNIA 

IRVINE 


PR 

44V 


MISCELLANIES 


Oliver  Goldsmifh. 


MISCELLANIES 


BY 

AUSTIN   DOBSON 


Ipsa   varietate  tentamus  ffficere,  tit   alia 
aliis,   qucedam  fortasse  omnibus  placean 

PLINY  TO  PATERNUS 


NEW  YORK 

DODD,  MEAD    AND    COMPANY 
1898 


Copyright,  1898, 
BY  DODD,  MEAD  AND  COMPANY. 


JOHN  WILSON  AND  SON,  CAMBRIDGE,  U.S.A. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

GOLDSMITH'S  POEMS  AND  PLAYS 7 

ANGELO'S  "REMINISCENCES" 33 

THE  LATEST  LIFE. OF  STEELE 57 

THE  AUTHOR  OF  "  MONSIEUR  TONSON  "     ...  87 

BOSWELL'S  PREDECESSORS  AND  EDITORS      .    .    .  109 

AN  ENGLISH  ENGRAVER  IN  PARIS 144 

THE  "  VICAR  OF  WAKEFIELD  "  AND  ITS  ILLUS- 
TRATORS      165 

OLD  WHITEHALL 183 

LUTTRELL'S  "  LETTERS  TO  JULIA  " 203 

CHANGES  AT  CHARING  CROSS 220 

JOHN  GAY 239 

AT  LEICESTER  FIELDS 275 

MARTEILHE'S  "MEMOIRS" 306 


MISCELLANIES 


GOLDSMITH'S   POEMS   AND  PLAYS. 

'"THIRTY  years  of  taking-in;  fifteen  years 
of  giving-out ; — that,  in  brief,  is  Oliver 
Goldsmith's  story.  When,  in  1758,  his  failure 
to  pass  at  Surgeons'  Hall  finally  threw  him  on 
letters  for  a  living,  the  thirty  years  were  finished, 
and  the  fifteen  years  had  been  begun.  What 
was  to  come  he  knew  not ;  but,  from  his  bare- 
walled  lodging  in  Green-Arbour-Court,  he  could 
at  least  look  back  upon  a  sufficiently  diversified 
past.  He  had  been  an  idle,  orchard-robbing 
schoolboy ;  a  tuneful  but  intractable  sizar  of 
Trinity ;  a  lounging,  loitering,  fair-haunting, 
flute-playing  Irish  "  buckeen."  He  had  knocked 
at  the  doors  of  both  Law  and  Divinity,  and 
crossed  the  threshold  of  neither.  He  had 
set  out  for  London  and  stopped  at  Dublin ;  he 
had  started  for  America  and  arrived  at  Cork. 
He  had  been  many  things :  a  medical  student, 
a  strolling  musician,  an  apothecary,  a  corrector 


8  Miscellanies. 

of  the  press,  an  usher  at  a  Peckham  "  academy." 
Judged  by  ordinary  standards,  he  had  wantonly 
wasted  his  time.  And  yet,  as  things  fell  out,  it 
is  doubtful  whether  his  parti-coloured  experi- 
ences were  not  of  more  service  to  him  than  any 
he  could  have  obtained  if  his  progress  had  been 
less  erratic.  Had  he  fulfilled  the  modest  expec- 
tations of  his  family,  he  would  probably  have 
remained  a  simple  curate  in  Westmeath,  eking 
out  his  "  forty  pounds  a  year  "  by  farming  a  field 
or  two,  migrating  contentedly  at  the  fitting  sea- 
son from  the  "  blue  bed  to  the  brown,"  and  (it 
may  be)  subsisting  vaguely  as  a  local  poet  upon 
the  tradition  of  some  youthful  couplets  to  a 
pretty  cousin,  who  had  married  a  richer  man. 
As  it  was,  if  he  could  not  be  said  to  have  "  seen 
life  steadily,  and  seen  it  whole,"  he  had,  at  all 
events,  inspected  it  pretty  closely  in  parts  ;  and, 
at  a  time  when  he  was  most  impressible,  had  pre- 
served the  impress  of  many  things,  which,  in  his 
turn,  he  was  to  re-impress  upon  his  writings. 
"  No  man"  —  says  one  of  his  biographers1  — 
"  ever  put  so  much  of  himself  into  his  books  as 
Goldsmith."  To  his  last  hour  he  was  drawing 
upon  the  thoughts  and  reviving  the  memories  of 
that  "unhallowed  time"  when,  to  all  appear- 
ance, he  was  hopelessly  squandering  his  oppor- 

1  Forster's  Life,  Bk.  ii.,  ch.  vi. 


Goldsmith's  Poems  and  Plays.  9 

tunities.  To  do  as  Goldsmith  did  would 
scarcely  enable  a  man  to  write  a  "  Vicar  of 
Wakefield  "  or  a  "Deserted  Village,"  —  cer- 
tainly his  practice  cannot  be  preached  with 
safety  "  to  those  that  eddy  round  and  round." 
But  viewing  his  entire  career,  it  is  difficult  not 
to  see  how  one  part  seems  to  have  been  an  in- 
dispensable preparation  for  the  other,  and  to 
marvel  once  more  (with  the  philosopher  Square) 
at  "the  eternal  Fitness  of  Things." 

The  events  of  Goldsmith's  life  have  been 
too  often  narrated  to  need  repetition,  and  we 
shall  not  resort  to  the  well-worn  device  of  re- 
peating them  in  order  to  say  so.  But  the  prog- 
ress of  time,  advancing  some  things  and  effacing 
others,  lends  a  fresh  aspect  even  to  master- 
pieces ;  for  which  reason  it  is  always  possible  to 
speak  of  a  writer's  work.  In  this  instance  we 
shall  restrict  ourselves  to  Goldsmith's  Poems 
and  Plays.  And,  with  regard  to  both,  what 
strikes  one  first  is  the  extreme  tardiness  of  that 
late  blossoming  upon  which  Johnson  commented. 
When  a  man  succeeds  as  Goldsmith  succeeded, 
friends  and  critics  speedily  discover  that  he  had 
shown  signs  of  excellence  even  from  his  boyish 
years.  But  setting  aside  those  half-mythical 
ballads  for  the  Dublin  street-singers,  and  some 


io  Miscellanies. 

doubtful  verses  for  Jane  Contarine,  there  is  no 
definite  evidence  that,  from  a  doggerel  couplet 
in  his  childhood  to  an  epigram  not  much  better 
than  doggerel  composed  when  he  was  five  and 
twenty,  he  had  written  a  line  of  verse  of  the 
slightest  importance  ;  and  even  five  years  later, 
although  he  refers  to  himself  in  a  private  letter 
as  a  "  poet,"  it  must  have  been  solely  upon  the 
strength  of  the  unpublished  fragment  of  "  The 
Traveller,"  which,  in  the  interval,  he  had  sent  to 
his  brother  Henry  from  abroad.  It  is  even  more 
remarkable  that  —  although  so  skilful  a  corre- 
spondent must  have  been  fully  sensible  of  his 
gifts  —  until  under  the  pressure  of  circum- 
stances he  drifted  into  literature,  the  craft  of 
letters  seems  never  to  have  been  his  ambition. 
He  thinks  of  turning  lawyer,  physician,  clergy- 
man, —  anything  but  author  ;  and  when  at  last  he 
engages  in  that  profession,  it  is  to  free  himself 
from  a  scholastic  slavery  which  he  seems  to  have 
always  regarded  with  peculiar  bitterness,  yet  to 
which,  after  a  first  unsatisfactory  trial  of  what 
was  to  be  his  true  vocation,  he  unhesitatingly 
returned.  If  he  went  back  anew  to  the  pen,  it 
was  only  to  enable  him  to  escape  from  it  more 
effectually,  and  he  was  prepared  to  go  as  far  as 
Coromandel.  But  Literature,  "  toute  entire  d  sa 
proie  attache'e,"  refused  to  relinquish  him  ;  and, 


Goldsmith's  Poems  and  Plays.  n 

although  he  continued  to  make  spasmodic  efforts 
to  extricate  himself  from  the  toils,  detained  him 
to  the  day  of  his  death. 

If  there  is  no  evidence  that  he  had  written 
much  when  he  entered  upon  what  has  been 
called  his  second  period,  he  had  not  the  less 
formed  his  opinions  on  many  literary  questions. 
Much  of  the  matter  of  the  "  Polite  Learning" 
is  plainly  manufactured  ad  hoc;  but  in  its  refer- 
ences to  authorship  and  criticism,  there  is  an 
individual  note  which  is  absent  elsewhere  ;  and 
when  he  speaks  of  the  tyranny  of  publishers,  the 
petty  standards  of  criticism,  and  the  forlorn  and 
precarious  existence  of  the  hapless  writer  for 
bread,  he  is  evidently  reproducing  a  condition  of 
things  with  which  he  had  become  familiar  during 
his  brief  bondage  on  the  "  Monthly  Review." 
As  to  his  personal  views  on  poetry  in  particular, 
it  is  easy  to  collect  them  from  this  and  later 
utterances.  Against  blank  verse  he  objects  from 
the  first,  as  suited  only  to  the  sublimest  themes, 
—  which  is  a  polite  way  of  shelving  it  altogether  ; 
while  in  favour  of  rhyme  he  alleges  —  perhaps 
borrowing  his  illustration  from  Montaigne  — 
that  the  very  restriction  stimulates  the  fancy,  as 
a  fountain  plays  highest  when  the  aperture  is 
diminished.  Blank  verse,  too  (he  asserts),  im- 
ports into  poetry  a  "disgusting  solemnity  of 


1 2  Miscellanies. 

manner"  which  is  fatal  to  "agreeable  trifling," 
—  an  objection  intimately  connected  with  the 
feeling  which  afterwards,  made  him  the  champion 
on  the  stage  of  character  and  humour.  Among 
the  poets  who  were  his  contemporaries  and  im- 
mediate predecessors,  his  likes  and  dislikes  were 
strong.  He  fretted  at  the  fashion  which  Gray's 
"  Elegy"  set  in  poetry  ;  he  considered  it  a  fine 
poem,  but  "  overloaded  with  epithet,"  and  he 
deplored  the  remoteness  and  want  of  emotion 
which  distinguished  the  Pindaric  Odes.  Yet 
from  many  indications  in  his  own  writings  he 
seems  to  have  genuinely  appreciated  the  work 
of  Collins.  Churchill,  and  Churchill's  satire,  he 
detested.  With  Young  he  had  some  personal 
acquaintance,  and  had  evidently  read  his  "  Night 
Thoughts  "  with  attention.  Of  the  poets  of  the 
last  age,  he  admired  Dryden,  Pope,  and  Gay, 
but  more  than  any  of  these,  if  imitation  is  to  be 
regarded  as  the  surest  proof  of  sympathy,  Prior, 
Addison,  and  Swift.  By  his  inclinations  and  his 
training,  indeed,  he  belonged  to  this  school. 
But  he  was  in  advance  of  it  in  thinking  that 
poetry,  however  didactic  after  the  fashion  of  his 
own  day,  should  be  simple  in  its  utterance  and 
directed  at  the  many  rather  than  at  the  few. 
This  is  what  he  meant  when,  from  the  critical 
elevation  of  Griffiths'  back  parlour,  he  recom- 


Goldsmith's  Poems  and  Plays.  13 

mended  Gray  to  take  the  advice  of  Isocrates, 
and  "  study  the  people."  If,  with  these  ideas,  he 
had  been  able  to  divest  himself  of  the  "warbling 
groves"  and  "finny  deeps"  of  the  Popesque 
vocabulary  (of  much  of  the  more  "mechanic 
art  "  of  that  supreme  artificer  he  did  successfully 
divest  himself),  it  would  have  needed  but  little 
to  make  him  a  prominent  pioneer  of  the  new 
school  which  was  coming  with  Cowper.  As  it 
is,  his  poetical  attitude  is  a  little  that  intermedi- 
ate one  of  Longfellow's  maiden,  — 

"  Standing,  with  reluctant  feet, 
Where  the  brook  and  river  meet." 

Most  of  his  minor  and  earlier  pieces  are 
imitative.  In  "A  New  Simile,"  and  "The 
Logicians  Refuted"  (if  that  be  his)  Swift  is  his 
acknowledged  model;  in  "The  Double  Trans- 
formation" it  is  Prior,  modified  by  certain 
theories  personal  to  himself.  He  was  evidently 
well  acquainted  with  collections  such  as  the 
"  M6nagiana,"  and  with  the  French  minor  poets 
of  the  eighteenth  century,  many  of  which  latter 
were  among  his  books  at  his  death.  These  he 
had  carefully  studied,  probably  during  his  con- 
tinental wanderings,  and  from  them  he  derives, 
like  Prior,  something  of  his  grace  and  metrical 
buoyancy.  The  "  Elegy  on  the  Death  of  a 


14  Miscellanies. 

Mad  Dog,"  and  "  Madam  Blaize,"  are  both 
more  or  less  constructed  on  the  old  French 
popular  song  of  the  hero  of  Pavia,  Jacques  de 
Chabannes,  Seigneur  de  la  Palice  (sometimes 
Galisse),  with,  in  the  case  of  the  former,  a  tag 
from  an  epigram  by  Voltaire,  the  original  of 
which  is  in  the  Greek  Anthology,  though  Vol- 
taire simply  "conveyed"  his  version  from  an 
anonymous  French  predecessor.  Similarly  the 
lively  stanzas  "To  Iris  in  Bow  Street,"  the 
lines  to  Myra,  the  quatrain  called  "  A  South 
American  Ode,"  and  that  "On  a  Beautiful 
Youth  struck  blind  with  Lightning,"  are  all 
confessed  or  unconfessed  translations.  If  Gold- 
smith had  lived  to  collect  his  own  works,  it  is 
possible  that  he  would  have  announced  the 
source  of  his  inspiration  in  these  instances  as 
well  as  in  one  or  two  other  cases,  —  the  epitaph 
on  Ned  Purdon,  for  example,  —  where  it  has 
been  reserved  to  his  editors  to  discover  his  obli- 
gations. On  the  other  hand,  he  might  have 
contended,  with  perfect  justice,  that  whatever 
the  source  of  his  ideas,  he  had  made  them  his 
own  when  he  got  them ;  and  certainly  in  lilt 
and  lightness,  the  lines  "To  Iris"  are  infinitely 
superior  to  those  of  La  Monnoye  on  which  they 
are  based.  But  even  a  fervent  admirer  may 
admit  that,  dwelling  as  he  did  in  this  very  vitre- 


Goldsmith's  Poems  and  Plays.  15 

ous  palace  of  Gallic  adaptation,  one  does  not 
expect  to  find  him  throwing  stones  at  Prior 
for  borrowing  from  the  French,  or  commenting 
solemnly  in  the  Life  of  Parnell  upon  the  heinous- 
ness  of  plagiarism.  "It  was  the  fashion,"  he 
says,  "  with  the  wits  of  the  last  age,  to  conceal 
the  places  from  whence  they  took  their  hints 
or  their  subjects.  A  trifling  acknowledgment 
would  have  made  that  lawful  prize  which  may 
now  be  considered  as  plunder."  He  might  judi- 
ciously have  added  to  this  latter  sentence  the 
quotation  which  he  struck  out  of  the  second 
issue  of  the  "Polite  Learning,"  — "  Haud 
inexpertus  loquor." 

Of  his  longer  pieces,  "The  Traveller "  was 
apparently  suggested  to  him  by  Addison's  "  Let- 
ter from  Italy  to  Lord  Halifax,"  a  poem  to 
which,  in  his  preliminary  notes  to  the  "  Beauties 
of  English  Poesy,"  he  gives  significant  praise. 
"There  is  in  it,"  he  says,  "  a  strain  of  political 
thinking  that  was,  at  that  time,  new  in  our 
country."  He  obviously  intended  that  "The 
Traveller  "  should  be  admired  for  the  same  rea- 
son ;  and  both  in  that  poem  and  its  successor, 
"  The  Deserted  Village,"  he  lays  stress  upon  the 
political  import  of  his  work.  The  one,  we  are  told, 
is  to  illustrate  the  position  that  the  happiness  of 
the  subject  is  independent  of  the  goodness  of  the 


1 6  Miscellanies. 

sovereign  ;  the  other,  to  deplore  the  increase  of 
luxury,  and  the  miseries  of  depopulation.  But, 
as  a  crowd  of  commentators  have  pointed  out, 
it  is  hazardous  for  a  poet  to  meddle  with  "  po- 
litical thinking,"  however  much,  under  George 
the  Second,  it  may  have  been  needful  to  proclaim 
a  serious  purpose.  If  Goldsmith  had  depended 
solely  upon  the  professedly  didactic  part  of  his 
attempt,  his  work  would  be  as  dead  as  "  Free- 
dom," or  "Sympathy,"  or  any  other  of  Dods- 
ley's  forgotten  quartos.  Fortunately  he  did  more 
than  this.  Sensibly  or  insensibly,  he  suffused 
his  work  with  that  philanthropy  which  is  "  not 
learned  by  the  royal  road  of  tracts  and  platform 
speeches  and  monthly  magazines,"  but  by  per- 
sonal commerce  with  poverty  and  sorrow  ;  and  he 
made  his  appeal  to  that  clinging  love  of  country, 
of  old  association,  of  "home-bred  happiness," 
of  innocent  pleasure,  which,  with  Englishmen, 
is  never  made  in  vain.  Employing  the  couplet 
of  Pope  and  Johnson,  he  has  added  to  his  meas- 
ure a  suavity  that  belonged  to  neither ;  but  the 
beauty  of  his  humanity  and  the  tender  melancholy 
of  his  wistful  retrospect  hold  us  more  strongly 
and  securely  than  the  studious  finish  of  his  style. 
"  Vingt  fois  sur  le  me1  tier  remeite\  votre  ou- 
vrage,"  said  the  arch-critic  whose  name,  ac- 
cording to  Keats,  the  school  of  Pope  displayed 


Goldsmith's  Poems  and  Plays.  17 

upon  their  "decrepit  standard."  Even  in  "The 
Traveller"  and  "The  Deserted  Village,"  there  are 
indications  of  over-labour;  but  in  a  poem  which 
comes  between  them  —  the  once  famous  "  Edwin 
and  Angelina  "  —  Goldsmith  certainly  carried  out 
Boileau's  maxim  to  the  full.  The  first  privately 
printed  version  differs  considerably  from  that  in 
the  first  edition  of  the  "Vicar;"  this  again  is 
altered  in  the  fourth  ;  and  there  are  other  varia- 
tions in  the  piece  as  printed  in  the  "  Poems  for 
Young  Ladies."  "As  to  my  '  Hermit,'"  said 
the  poet  complacently,  "  that  poem,  Cradock, 
cannot  be  amended," — and  undoubtedly  it  has 
been  skilfully  wrought.  But  it  is  impossible  to 
look  upon  it  now  with  the  unpurged  eyes  of 
those  upon  whom  the  "  Reliques  of  Ancient 
Poetry"  had  but  recently  dawned,  still  less  to 
endorse  the  verdict  of  Sir  John  Hawkins  that  "it 
is  one  of  the  finest  poems  of  the  lyric  kind  that 
our  language  has  to  boast  of."  Its  over-soft 
prettiness  is  too  much  that  of  the  chromo-litho- 
graph,  or  the  Parian  bust  (the  porcelain,  not  the 
marble),  and  its  "  beautiful  simplicity"  is  in  parts 
perilously  close  upon  that  inanity  which  Johnson, 
whose  sturdy  good  sense  not  even  friendship 
could  silence,  declared  to  be  the  characteristic 
of  much  of  Percy's  collection.  It  is  instructive 
as  a  study  of  poetical  progress  to  contrast  it 


1 8  Miscellanies. 

with   a    ballad    of  our   own    day   in    the  same 
measure,  —  the  "Talking  Oak"  of  Tennyson. 

The  remaining  poems  of  Goldsmith,  excluding 
the  "  Captivity,"  and  the  admittedly  occasional 
"  Threnodia  Augustalis,"  are  not  open  to  the 
charge  of  fictitious  simplicity,  or  of  that  hyper- 
elaboration  which,  in  the  words  of  the  poet  just 
mentioned,  makes  for  the  "  ripe  and  rotten." 
The  gallery  of  kit-cats  in  "  Retaliation,"  and  the 
delightful  bonhomie  of  "The  Haunch  of  Veni- 
son," need  no  commendation.  In  kindly  humour 
and  not  unkindly  satire  Goldsmith  was  at  his 
best,  and  the  imperishable  portraits  of  Burke  and 
Garrick  and  Reynolds,  and  the  inimitable  dinner 
at  which  Lord  Clare's  pasty  was  not,  are  as  well 
known  as  any  of  the  stock  passages  of  "The 
Deserted  Village"  or  "The  Traveller"  though 
they  have  never  been  babbled  "  in  extremis  vicis  " 
by  successive  generations  of  schoolboys.  It  is 
usually  said,  probably  with  truth,  that  in  these 
poems  and  the  delightful  "Letter  to  Mrs.  Bun- 
bury,"  Goldsmith's  metre  was  suggested  by  the 
cantering  anapests  of  the  "  New  Bath  Guide," 
and  it  is  to  be  observed  that  "  Little  Comedy's  " 
invitation  is  to  the  same  favourite  tune.  But  it 
is  also  the  fact  that  a  line  of  the  once  popular 
lyric  of  "  Ally  Croaker,"  — 

"  Too  dull  for  a  wit,  too  grave  for  a  joker, "  — 


Goldsmith's  Poems  and  Plays.  19 

has  a  kind  of  echo  in  the  — 

"  Too  nice  for  a  statesman,  too  proud  for  a  wit "  — 

of  Burke's  portrait  in  "  Retaliation."  What  is 
still  more  remarkable  is  that  Gray's  "  Sketch  of 
his  own  Character,"  the  resemblance  of  which 
to  Goldsmith  has  been  pointed  out  by  his  editors, 
begins,  — 
"  Too  poor  for  a  bribe,  and  too  proud  to  importune." 

Whether  Goldsmith  was  thinking  of  Anstey  or 
"  Ally  Croaker,"  it  is  at  least  worthy  of  passing 
notice  that  an  Irish  song  of  no  particular  literary 
merit  should  have  succeeded  in  haunting  the 
two  foremost  poets  of  their  day. 

Poetry  brought  Goldsmith  fame,  but  money 
only  indirectly.  Those  Saturnian  days  of  the 
subscription-edition,  when  Pope  and  Gay  and 
Prior  counted  their  gains  by  thousands,  were 
over  and  gone.  He  had  arrived,  it  has  been 
truly  said,  too  late  for  the  Patron,  and  too  early 
for  the  Public.  Of  his  lighter  pieces,  the  best 
were  posthumous ;  the  rest  were  either  paid  for  at 
hack  prices  or  not  at  all.  For  "  The  Deserted 
Village  "  Griffin  gave  him  a  hundred  guineas,  a 
sum  so  unexampled  as  to  have  prompted  the 
pleasant  legend  that  he  returned  it.  For  "The 
Traveller"  the  only  payment  that  can  be  defi- 


so  Miscellanies. 

nitely  traced  is  ^21.  "  I  cannot  afford  to  court 
the  draggle-tail  muses,"  he  said  laughingly  to 
Lord  Lisburn  ;  "  they  would  let  me  starve  ;  but 
by  my  other  labours  I  can  make  shift  to  eat,  and 
drink,  and  have  good  clothes."  It  was  in  his 
"  other  labours  "  that  his  poems  helped  him.  The 
booksellers,  who  would  not  or  could  not  remun- 
erate him  adequately  for  delayed  production  and 
minute  revision,  were  willing  enough  to  secure 
the  sanction  of  his  name  for  humbler  journey- 
work.  If  he  was  ill-paid  for  "The  Traveller," 
he  was  not  ill-paid  for  the  "  Beauties  of  English 
Poesy  "  or  the  "  History  of  Animated  Nature." 

Yet  notwithstanding  his  ready  pen,  and  his 
skill  as  a  compiler,  his  life  was  a  treadmill. 
"  While  you  are  nibbling  about  elegant  phrases, 
I  am  obliged  to  write  half  a  volume,"  he  told 
his  friend  Cradock  ;  and  it  was  but  natural  that 
he  should  desire  to  escape  into  walks  where 
he  might  accomplish  something  "for  his  own 
hand,"  by  which,  at  the  same  time,  he  might 
exist.  Fiction  he  had  already  essayed.  Nearly 
two  years  before  "  The  Traveller  "  appeared,  he 
had  written  a  story  about  the  length  of  "  Joseph 
Andrews,"  for  which  he  had  received  little  more 
than  a  third  of  the  sum  paid  by  Andrew  Millar 
to  Fielding  for  his  burlesque  of  Richardson's 
"  Pamela."  But  obscure  circumstances  delayed 


Goldsmith's  Poems  and  Plays.  21 

the  publication  of  the  "  Vicar  of  Wakefield  "  for 
four  years,  and  when  at  last  it  was  issued,  its 
first  burst  of  success  —  a  success,  as  far  as  can 
be  ascertained,  productive  of  no  further  profit 
to  its  author  —  was  followed  by  a  long  period 
during  which  the  sales  were  languid  and  un- 
certain. There  remained  the  stage,  with  its  two- 
fold allurement  of  fame  and  fortune,  both  payable 
at  sight,  added  to  which  it  was  always  possible 
that  a  popular  play,  in  those  days  when  plays 
were  bought  to  read,  might  find  a  brisk  market 
in  pamphlet  form.  The  prospect  was  a  tempting 
one,  and  it  is  scarcely  surprising  that  Goldsmith, 
weary  of  the  "  dry  drudgery  at  the  desk's  dead 
wood,"  and  conscious  of  better  things  within 
him,  should  engage  in  that  most  tantalising  of 
all  enterprises,  the  pursuit  of  dramatic  success. 

For  acting  and  actors  he  had  always  shown  a 
decided  partiality.1  Vague  stories,  based,  in  all 
probability,  upon  the  references  to  strolling 

1  This  is  not  inconsistent  with  the  splenetic  utterances 
in  the  letters  to  Daniel  Hodson,  first  made  public  in  the 
"  Great  Writers "  life  of  Goldsmith,  where  he  speaks 
of  the  stage  as  "  an  abominable  resource  which  neither 
became  a  man  of  honour,  nor  a  man  of  sense."  Those 
letters  were  written  when  the  production  of  "  The 
Good-Natur'd  Man"  had  supplied  him  with  abundant 
practical  evidence  of  the  vexations  and  difficulties  of 
theatrical  ambition. 


22  Miscellanies. 

players  in  his  writings,  hinted  that  he  himself  had 
once  worn  the  comic  sock  as  "Scrub"  in 
"The  Beaux1  Stratagem;"  and  it  is  clear  that 
soon  after  he  arrived  in  England,  he  had  com- 
pleted a  tragedy,  for  he  read  it  in  manuscript 
to  a  friend.  That  he  had  been  besides  an  acute 
and  observant  playgoer  is  plain  from  his  excel- 
lent account  in  "The  Bee"  of  Mademoiselle 
Clairon,  whom  he  had  seen  at  Paris,  and  from 
his  sensible  notes  in  the  same  periodical  on 
"  gestic  lore  "  as  exhibited  on  the  English  stage. 
In  his  "  Polite  Learning  in  Europe,"  he  had 
followed  up  Ralph's  "  Case  of  Authors  by  Pro- 
fession," by  protesting  against  the  despotism  of 
managers,  and  the  unenlightened  but  economical 
policy  of  producing  only  the  works  of  deceased 
playwrights  ;  and  he  was  equally  opposed  to  the 
growing  tendency  on  the  part  of  the  public  —  a 
tendency  dating  from  Richardson  and  the  French 
come'die  larmoyantc  —  to  substitute  sham  sensi- 
bility and  superficial  refinement  for  that  humour- 
ous delineation  of  manners  which,  with  all  their 
errors  of  morality  and  taste,  had  been  the  chief 
aim  of  Congreve  and  his  contemporaries.  To 
the  fact  that  what  was  now  known  as  "  genteel 
comedy"  had  almost  wholly  supplanted  this 
elder  and  better  manner,  must  be  attributed  his 
deferred  entry  upon  a  field  so  obviously  adapted 


Goldsmith's  Poems  and  Plays.          23 

to  his  gifts.  But  when,  in  1766,  the  "Clandes- 
tine Marriage  "  of  Garrick  and  Colman,  with  its 
evergreen  "Lord  Ogleby,"  seemed  to  herald  a 
return  to  the  side  of  laughter  as  opposed  to  that 
of  tears,  he  took  heart  of  grace,  and,  calling  to 
mind  something  of  the  old  inconsiderate  benevo- 
lence which  had  been  the  Goldsmith  family- 
failing,  set  about  his  first  comedy,  "  The  Good- 
Natur'd  Man." 

Even  without  experiment,  no  one  could  have 
known  better  than  Goldsmith  upon  what  a  sea 
of  troubles  he  had  embarked.  Those  obstacles 
which,  more  than  thirty  years  before,  had  been 
so  graphically  described  in  Fielding's  "  Pas- 
quin," —  which  Goldsmith  himself  had  indicated 
with  equal  accuracy  in  his  earliest  book,  —  still 
lay  in  the  way  of  all  dramatic  purpose,  and  he 
was  to  avoid  none  of  them.  When  he  submitted 
his  completed  work  to  Garrick,  the  all-powerful 
actor,  who  liked  neither  piece  nor  author,  blew 
hot  and  cold  so  long  that  Goldsmith  at  last,  in 
despair,  transferred  it  to  Colman.  But,  as  if 
fate  was  inexorable,  Colman,  after  accepting  it 
effusively,  also  grew  dilatory,  and  ultimately 
entered  into  a  tacit  league  with  Garrick  not  to 
produce  it  at  Covent  Garden  until  his  former 
rival  had  brought  out  at  Drury  Lane  a  comedy 
by  Goldsmith's  countryman,  Hugh  Kelly,  a  sen- 


24  Miscellanies. 

timentalist  of  the  first  water.  Upon  the  heels 
of  the  enthusiastic  reception  which  Garrick's 
administrative  tact  secured  for  the  superfine  en- 
tanglements of  "  False  Delicacy,"  came  limping 
"The  Good-Natur'd  Man"  of  Goldsmith,  wet- 
blanketed  beforehand  by  a  sombre  prologue 
from  Johnson.  No  first  appearance  could  have 
been  less  favourable.  Until  it  was  finally  saved 
in  the  fourth  act  by  the  excellent  art  of  Shuter 
as  "  Croaker,"  its  fate  hung  trembling  in  the 
balance,  and  even  then  one  of  its  scenes  —  not 
afterwards  reckoned  the  worst  —  had  to  be  with- 
drawn in  deference  to  the  delicate  scruples  of  an 
audience  which  could  not  suffer  such  inferior 
beings  as  bailiffs  to  come  between  the  wind  and 
its  gentility.  Yet,  in  spite  of  all  these  disad- 
vantages, "The  Good-Natur'd  Man"  obtained 
a  hearing,  besides  bringing  its  author  about  five 
hundred  pounds,  a  sum  far  larger  than  anything 
he  had  ever  made  by  poetry  or  fiction. 

That  the  superior  success  of  "  False  Deli- 
cacy," with  its  mincing  morality  and  jumble  of 
inadequate  motives,  was  wholly  temporary  and 
accidental  is  evident  from  the  fact  that,  to  use  a 
felicitous  phrase,  it  has  now  to  be  disinterred  in 
order  to  be  discussed.  But,  notwithstanding 
one's  instinctive  sympathy  for  Goldsmith  in  his 
struggles  with  the  managers,  it  is  not  equally 


Goldsmith's  Poems  and  Plays.          2^ 

clear  that  everything  considered,  "The  Good- 
Natur'd  Man  "  was  unfairly  treated  by  the  pub- 
lic. Because  Kelly's  play  was  praised  too  much, 
it  by  no  means  follows  that  Goldsmith's  play  was 
praised  too  little.  With  all  the  advantage  of  its 
author's  reputation,  it  has  never  since  passed 
into  the  repertoire,  and,  if  it  had  something  of 
the  freshness  of  a  first  effort,  it  had  also  its  in- 
experience. The  chief  character,  Honeywood, 
—  the  weak  and  amiable  "  good-natur'd  man,"  — 
never  stands  very  firmly  on  his  feet,  and  the  first 
actor  of  the  part,  Garrick's  promising  young 
rival,  Powell,  failed,  or  disdained  to  make  it  a 
stage  success.  On  the  other  hand,  "  Croaker," 
an  admitted  elaboration  of  Johnson's  sketch  of 
"  Suspirius  "  in  the  Rambler,  is  a  first-rate  comic 
creation,  and  the  charlatan  "  Lofty,"  a  sort  of 
"  Beau-Tibbs-above-Stairs,"  is  almost  as  good. 
But,  as  Garrick's  keen  eye  saw,  to  have  a  sec- 
ond male  figure  of  greater  importance  than  the 
central  personage  was  a  serious  error  of  judg- 
ment, added  to  which  neither  "  Miss  Richland  " 
nor  "  Mrs.  Croaker  "  ever  establishes  any  hold 
upon  the  audience.  Last  of  all,  the  plot,  such 
as  it  is,  cannot  be  described  as  either  particularly 
ingenious  or  particularly  novel.  In  another 
way  the  merit  of  the  piece  is,  however,  incon- 
testable. It  is  written  with  all  the  perspicuous 


26  Miscellanies. 

grace  of  Goldsmith's  easy  pen,  and,  in  the 
absence  of  stage-craft,  sparkles  with  neat  and 
effective  epigrams.  One  of  these  may  be  men- 
tioned as  illustrating  the  writer's  curious  (per- 
haps unconscious)  habit  of  repeating  ideas  which 
had  pleased  him.  He  had  quoted  in  his  "  Polite 
Learning"  the  exquisitely  rhythmical  close  of 
Sir  William  Temple's  prose  essay  on  "  Poetry," 
and  in  "The  Bee"  it  still  seems  to  haunt  him. 
In  "  The  Good-Natur'd  Man"  he  has  absorbed 
it  altogether,  for  he  places  it,  without  inverted 
commas,  in  the  lips  of  Croaker.1 

But  if  its  lack  of  constructive  power  and  its 
errors  of  conception  make  it  impossible  to  re- 
gard "  The  Good-Natur'd  Man  "  as  a  substantial 
gain  to  humourous  drama,  it  was  undoubtedly  a 
formidable  attack  upon  that  "mawkish  drab  of 
spurious  breed,"  Sentimental  Comedy,  and  its 
success  was  amply  sufficient  to  justify  a  second 
trial.  That  Goldsmith  did  not  forthwith  make 
this  renewed  effort  must  be  attributed  partly  to 
the  recollection  of  his  difficulties  in  getting  his 
first  play  produced,  partly  to  the  fact  that,  his  dra- 
matic gains  exhausted,  he  was  almost  immediately 
involved  in  a  sequence  of  laborious  taskwork. 

1  In  the  same  way  he  annexes,  both  in  "  The  Hermit " 
and  "  The  Citizen  of  the  World,"  a  quotation  from 
Young. 


Goldsmith's  Poems  and  Plays.  27 

Still,  he  had  never  abandoned  his  ambition  to  re- 
store humour  and  character  to  the  stage ;  and  as 
time  went  on,  the  sense  of  his  past  discourage- 
ments grew  fainter,  while  the  success  of  "  The 
Deserted  Village  "  increased  his  importance  as 
an  author.  Sentimentalism,  in  the  meantime, 
had  still  a  majority:  Kelly,  it  is  true,  was  now 
no  longer  to  be  feared.  His  sudden  good  for- 
tune had  swept  him  into  the  ranks  of  the  party- 
writers,  with  the  result  that  the  damning  of  his 
next  play,  "A  Word  to  the  Wise,"  had  been 
exaggerated  into  a  political  necessity.  But  the 
school  which  he  represented  had  been  recruited 
by  a  much  abler  man,  Richard  Cumberland,  and 
it  was  probably  the  favourable  reception  of 
Cumberland's  "West  Indian"  that  stimulated 
Goldsmith  into  striking  one  more  blow  for  legiti- 
mate comedy.  At  all  events,  in  the  autumn  of 
the  year  in  which  "  The  West  Indian  "  was  pro- 
duced, he  is  hard  at  work  in  the  lanes  at  Hen- 
don  and  Edgware,  "studying  jests  with  a  most 
tragical  countenance"  for  a  successor  to  "The 
Good-Natur'd  Man." 

To  the  modern  spectator  of  "  She  Stoops  to 
Conquer,"  with  its  unflagging  humour  and  bus- 
tling action,  it  must  seem  almost  inconceivable 
that  its  stage  qualities  can  ever  have  been  ques- 
tioned. Yet  questioned  they  undoubtedly  were, 


28  Miscellanies. 

and  Goldsmith  was  spared  none  of  his  former 
humiliations.  Even  from  the  outset,  all  was 
against  him.  His  difference  with  Garrick  had 
long  been  adjusted,  and  the  Drury  Lane  mana- 
ger would  now  probably  have  accepted  a  new 
play  from  his  pen,  especially  as  that  astute  ob- 
server had  already  detected  signs  of  a  reaction 
in  the  public  taste.  But  Goldsmith  was  morally 
bound  to  Colman  and  Covent  Garden ;  and 
Colman,  in  whose  hands  he  placed  his  manu- 
script, proved  even  more  disheartening  and  un- 
manageable than  Garrick  had  been  in  the  past. 
Before  he  had  come  to  his  decision,  the  close  of 
1772  had  arrived.  Early  in  the  following  year, 
under  the  irritation  of  suspense  and  suggested 
amendments  combined,  Goldsmith  hastily  trans- 
ferred his  proposal  to  Garrick;  but,  by  John- 
son's advice,  as  hastily  withdrew  it.  Only  by 
the  express  interposition  of  Johnson  was  Col- 
man at  last  induced  to  make  a  distinct  promise 
to  bring  out  the  play  at  a  specific  date.  To  be- 
lieve in  it,  he  could  not  be  persuaded,  and  his 
contagious  anticipations  of  its  failure  passed  in- 
sensibly to  the  actors,  who,  one  after  another, 
shuffled  out  of  their  parts.  Even  over  the  epi- 
logue there  were  vexatious  disputes,  and  when 
at  last,  in  March,  1773,  "She  Stoops  to  Con- 
quer" was  performed,  its  leading  actor  had  pre- 


Goldsmith's  Poems  and  Plays.          29 

viously  held  no  more  exalted  position  than  that 
of  ground-harlequin,  while  one  of  its  most  promi- 
nent characters  had  simply  been  a  post-boy  in 
''The  Good-Natur'd  Man."  But  once  fairly 
upon  the  boards  neither  lukewarm  actors  nor  an 
adverse  manager  had  any  further  influence  over 
it,  and  the  doubts  of  every  one  vanished  in  the 
uninterrupted  applause  of  the  audience.  When, 
a  few  days  later,  it  was  printed  with  a  brief  and 
grateful  dedication  to  its  best  friend,  Johnson, 
the  world  already  knew  with  certainty  that  a 
fresh  masterpiece  had  been  added  to  the  roll  of 
English  Dramatic  Literature,  and  that  "  genteel 
comedy  "  had  received  a  decisive  blow. 

The  effect  of  this  blow,  it  must  be  admitted, 
had  been  aided  not  a  little  by  the  appearance, 
only  a  week  or  two  earlier,  of  Foote's  clever 
puppet-show  of  "The  Handsome  Housemaid; 
or,  Piety  in  Pattens,"  which  was  openly  di- 
rected at  Kelly  and  his  following.  But  ridicule 
by  itself,  without  some  sample  of  a  worthier 
substitute,  could  not  have  sufficed  to  displace  a 
persistent  fashion.  This  timely  antidote  "  She 
Stoops  to  Conquer,"  in  the  most  unmistakable 
way,  afforded.  From  end  to  end  of  the  piece 
there  is  not  a  sickly  or  a  maudlin  word.  Even 
Sheridan,  writing  "  The  Rivals  "  two  years  later, 
thought  it  politic  to  insert  "  Faulkland "  and 


jo  Miscellanies. 

"Julia"  for  the  benefit  of  the  sentimentalists. 
Goldsmith  made  no  such  concession,  and  his 
wholesome,  hearty  merriment  put  to  flight  the 
Comedy  of  Tears,  —  even  as  the  Coquecigrues 
vanished  before  the  large-lunged  laugh  of  Pan- 
tagruel.  If,  as  Johnson  feared,  the  plot  bor- 
dered slightly  upon  farce  —  and  of  what  good 
comedy  may  this  not  be  said?  —  at  least  it  can 
be  urged  that  its  most  farcical  incident,  the  mis- 
taking of  a  gentleman's  house  for  an  inn,  had 
really  happened,  since  it  had  happened  to  the 
writer  himself.  But  the  superfine  objections  of 
Walpole  and  his  friends  are  now  ancient  history, 
—  history  so  ancient  that  it  is  scarcely  credited, 
while  Goldsmith's  manly  assertion  (after  Field- 
ing) of  the  author's  right  "  to  stoop  among  the 
low  to  copy  nature,"  has  been  ratified  by  suc- 
cessive generations  of  novelists  and  playwrights. 
What  is  beyond  dispute  is  the  healthy  atmo- 
sphere, the  skilful  setting,  the  lasting  freshness 
and  fidelity  to  human  nature  of  the  persons  of 
his  drama.  Not  content  with  the  finished  por- 
traits of  the  Hardcastles  (a  Vicar  and  Mrs. 
Primrose  promoted  to  the  squirearchy),  —  not 
content  with  the  incomparable  and  unapproach- 
able Tony,  the  author  has  managed  to  make 
attractive  what  is  too  often  insipid,  his  heroines 
and  their  lovers.  Miss  Hardcastle  and  Miss 


Goldsmith's  Poems  and  Plays.  31 

Neville  are  not  only  charming  young  women, 
but  charming  characters,  while  Marlow  and 
Hastings  are  much  more  than  stage  young  men. 
And  let  it  be  remembered  —  it  cannot  be  too 
often  remembered  —  that  in  returning  to  those 
Farquhars  and  Vanbrughs  "  of  the  last  age," 
who  differed  so  widely  from  the  Kellys  and 
Cumberlands  of  his  own,  Goldsmith  has  brought 
back  no  taint  of  their  baser  part.  Depending 
solely  for  its  avowed  intention  to  "  make  an 
audience  merry,"  upon  the  simple  development 
of  its  humourous  incident,  his  play  (wonderful 
to  relate  ! )  attains  its  end  without  resorting  to 
impure  suggestion  or  equivocal  intrigue.  In- 
deed, there  is  but  one  married  woman  in  the 
piece,  and  she  traverses  it  without  a  stain  upon 
her  character. 

"  She  Stoops  to  Conquer"  is  Goldsmith's  last 
dramatic  work,  for  the  trifling  sketch  of  "The 
Grumbler  "  had  never  more  than  a  grateful  pur- 
pose. When,  only  a  year  later,  the  little  funeral 
procession  from  2,  Brick  Court  laid  him  in  his 
unknown  grave  in  the  Temple  burying-ground, 
the  new  comedy  of  which  he  had  written  so 
hopefully  to  Garrick  was  still  non-existent. 
Would  it  have  been  better  than  its  last  fortunate 
predecessor?  —  would  those  early  reserves  of 
memory  and  experience  have  still  proved  in- 


3  2  Miscellanies. 

exhaustible  ?  The  question  cannot  be  answered. 
Through  debt,  and  drudgery,  and  depression, 
the  writer's  genius  had  still  advanced,  and  these 
might  yet  have  proved  powerless  to  check  his 
progress.  But  at  least  it  was  given  to  him  to 
end  upon  his  best,  and  not  to  outlive  it.  For, 
in  that  critical  sense  which  estimates  the  value 
of  a  work  by  its  excellence  at  all  points,  it  can 
scarcely  be  contested  that  "  She  Stoops  to 
Conquer"  is  his  best  production.  In  spite  of 
their  beauty  and  humanity,  the  lasting  quality  of 
"  The  Traveller  "  and  "  The  Deserted  Village  " 
is  seriously  prejudiced  by  his  half-way  attitude 
between  the  poetry  of  convention  and  the 
poetry  of  nature  —  between  the  gradus  epithet  of 
Pope  and  the  direct  vocabulary  of  Wordsworth. 
With  the  "  Vicar  of  Wakefield  "  again,  immortal 
though  it  be,  it  is  less  his  art  that  holds  us  than 
his  charm,  his  humour,  and  his  tenderness,  which 
tempt  us  to  forget  his  inconsistency  and  his 
errors  of  haste.  In  "  She  Stoops  to  Conquer," 
neither  defect  of  art  nor  defect  of  nature  forbids 
us  to  give  unqualified  admiration  to  a  work 
which  lapse  of  time  has  shown  to  be  still 
unrivalled  in  its  kind. 


ANGELO'S   "REMINISCENCES." 

IN  the  year  175 —  (it  is  not  possible  to  fix  the 
date  more  precisely),  there  was  what  would 
now  be  called  a  public  assault  of  arms  at  one 
of  the  great  hotels  of  pre-revolutionary  Paris. 
Among  the  amateurs  who  took  part  in  it  —  for 
there  were  amateurs  as  well  as  professionals  — 
was  a  foreign  $ro[&g&  of  the  Duke  de  Niver- 
nais,  that  amiable  and  courteous  nobleman  who 
subsequently  visited  this  country  at  the  close 
of  the  Seven  Years'  War,  in  the  character  of 
Ambassador  Extraordinary  and  Plenipotentiary 
from  His  Most  Christian  Majesty,  Louis  XV. 
The  stranger,  who  was  in  the  prime  of  life, 
was  of  graceful  figure  and  address,  and  his 
name  had  been  no  sooner  announced  than  an 
English  lady,  then  visiting  the  French  capital, 
and  possessed  of  great  vivacity  and  considerable 
personal  attractions,  stepped  forward  and  pre- 
sented him  with  a  bunch  of  roses.  He  received 
it  with  becoming  gallantry,  fastened  it  carefully 
on  his  left  breast,  and  forthwith  declared  that 
he  would  defend  it  against  all  comers.  What 
3 


34  Miscellanies. 

is  more,  he  kept  his  promise.  He  afterwards 
"  fenced  with  several  of  the  first  masters,  not 
one  of  whom,"  says  the  narrator  of  the  story, 
"  could  disturb  a  single  leaf  of  the  bouquet." 
The  lady  was  the  celebrated  Mrs.  Margaret 
Woffington,  then  in  the  height  of  her  fame  as 
a  beauty  and  an  actress  ;  the  gentleman  was  an 
Italian,  travelling  for  his  pleasure.  He  was  the 
son  of  a  well-to-do  merchant  at  Leghorn,  and 
and  he  was  called  Dominico  Angelo  Malevolti 
Tremamondo. 

Shortly  after  the  foregoing  incident,  Signer 
Dominico  Angelo  Malevolti  Tremamondo  ("I 
love"  —  says  Goldsmith  of  Miss  Carolina  Wil- 
elmina  Amelia  Skeggs — "to  give  the  whole 
name  !  "  )  transported  his  foil  and  his  good  looks 
to  this  country.  In  addition  to  his  proficiency 
as  a  fencer,  he  was  "a  master  of  equitation," 
having  been  a  pupil  of  the  then  famous  scientific 
horseman,  Teillagory1  the  elder.  These  were 
accomplishments  which  speedily  procured  for 
him  both  popularity  and  patrons  in  London.  He 
became  in  a  few  months  fauyer  to  Henry  Her- 
bert, tenth  Earl  of  Pembroke,  who  was  not  only 
an  accomplished  cavalier  himself,  but  was  then, 
or  was  soon  to  be,  lieutenant-colonel  of  Elliot's 
Light  Horse,  a  crack  dragoon  regiment,  which, 

1  Here  and  elsewhere  we  correct  Angelo's  spelling. 


Angela's  "Reminiscences."  35 

by  the  way,  numbered  among  its  corporals  the 
future  Astley  of  the  Westminster  Bridge  Road 
Amphitheatre.  Lord  Pembroke  had  private 
maneges  both  in  the  neighbourhood  of  his  house 
in  Whitehall  Gardens  (part  of  the  present  No. 
7),  and  at  his  family  seat  of  Wilton,  near  Salis- 
bury. At  first  his  e"cuyer  confined  himself  to 
teaching  riding  ;  but  a  chance  encounter  at  the 
Thatched  House  Tavern  with  Dr.  Keys,  a  well- 
known  Irish  fencer,  in  which  he  vanquished  his 
antagonist,  determined  his  choice  of  the  calling  of 
a  maitre  d'armes.  His  first  pupil  was  the  Duke 
of  Devonshire.  Later  he  was  engaged  by  the 
Princess  of  Wales  to  instruct  the  young  princes 
in  horsemanship  and  the  use  of  the  small  sword, 
for  which  purposes  premises  were  provided 
in  Leicester  Fields,  within  two  doors  from 
Hogarth's  dwelling  in  the  east  corner.  Before 
many  years  were  over,  Dominico  Angelo  —  for 
he  seems  to  have  discarded  first  one  and  then 
the  other  of  his  last  two  names  —  setup  a  riding 
school  of  his  own  in  Soho.  But  previously  to 
all  this,  and  apparently  not  long  after  his  arrival 
in  London,  he  had  fallen  in  love  with,  and  taken 
to  wife,  the  daughter  of  an  English  naval  officer. 
Judging  from  the  picture  of  her  which  Rey- 
nolds painted  in  1766,  the  bride  (who  was  a 
minor)  must  have  been  as  handsome  as  her 


3  6  Miscellanies. 

husband.     The  marriage  took  place  in  February, 

1755,  at  St.    George's,    Hanover  Square,   the 
register  of  which   duly  records  the  union,   by 
license   of  the  Archbishop   of  Canterbury,  of 
Domenico   Angelo     Malevolti,    bachelor,    and 
Elizabeth  Johnson,   spinster.     The   pair  had  a 
son,  the  Henry  Angelo  from  whose  disorgan- 
ised and  gossiping  "  Reminiscences"1  most  of 
the  foregoing  particulars  are  derived. 

Harry  Angelo,  so  he  was  called,  is  not  explicit 
as  to  the  date  of  his  birth,  which  probably  took 
place  at  the  end  of  1755  or  the  beginning  of 

1756.  It  seems  at  first  to  have  been  intended 
that  he  should  enter  the  Navy  ;  and,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,   he  was   actually  enrolled    by   Captain 
Augustus  Hervey  (Lady  Hervey's  second  son) 
on  the  books  of  the  Dragon  man-of  war  in  the 
capacity  of  midshipman,  thereby  becoming  en- 
titled,  at  an   extremely  tender  age,   to   some 
twenty-five  guineas  prize  money.     After  a  short 
period  under  Dr.  Rose  of  Chiswick,  the  transla- 
tor of  Sallust,  he  went  to  Eton,  where  his  father 
taught  fencing ;   and  at  Eton  he  remained  for 
some  years.     Two  of  his   school-fellows  were 
Nathan    and   Carrington    Garrick,    the  actor's 

1  "  Reminiscences  of  Henry  Angelo,  with  Memoirs  of 
his  late  Father  and  Friends,"  2  vols.,  London  :  Colburn 
and  Bentley,  1830. 


Angela's  "Reminiscences."  37 

nephews  ;  and  young  Angelo  had  pleasant  mem- 
ories of  their  uncle's  visits  to  Eton,  where,  be- 
ing a  friend  of  the  elder  Angelo,  he  would  regale 
all  three  boys  sumptuously  at  the  Christopher 
inn,  and  amuse  them  with  quips  and  recitations.1 
Harry  Angelo  had  even  the  good  fortune,  while 
at  Eton,  to  be  taken  to  that  solemn  tom- 
foolery, the  Stratford  Jubilee  of  1769,  in  which 
his  father  doubled  the  part  of  Mark  Antony 
with  that  of  director  of  fireworks.  Another 
occasional  visitor  to  the  school,  magnificently 
frogged  and  braided  after  the  fashion  of  his 
kind,  was  the  Italian  quack  Dominicetti,  also  a 
family  friend,  who  treated  the  boys  royally. 
But  perhaps  the  most  interesting  memories  of 
young  Angelo's  Eton  days  are  those  which 
recall  a  holiday  spent  at  Amesbury  with  his 
father  and  mother,  as  the  guest  of  the  Duke 
and  Duchess  of  Queensberry.  In  his  old  age 
he  could  clearly  picture  the  tall,  thin  figure  of 
the  taciturn  Duke,  in  high  leather  gaiters, 
short-skirted  frock,  and  gold-laced  hat ;  and  he 

1  Apparently  Garrick  often  did  this.  Once,  at  Hamp- 
ton, he  read  Chaucer's  "  Cock  and  Fox  "  to  the  boys  after 
supper,  and  then,  having  recited  Goldsmith's  "  Hermit," 
fell  asleep  in  his  arm-chair.  Thereupon  Mrs.  Garrick, 
taking  off  her  lace  apron,  fondly  placed  it  over  his  face, 
and  motioned  her  young  friends  away  to  bed. 


3  8  Miscellanies, 

well  remembered  the  Duchess,  then  nearly 
eighty,  but  still  energetic  and  garrulous,  in  a 
Quaker-coloured  silk  and  black  hood.  He  also 
remembered  that  he  was  allowed  (like  Gay 
before  him)  to  fish  for  carp  in  the  Amesbury 
water. 

When  he  was  entering  his  seventeenth  year, 
Harry  Angelo  was  sent  to  Paris  to  learn  French. 
He  was  placed  en  pension  in  the  Rue  Poupd 
with  a  M.  Boileau,  a  half-starved  maitre  de 
langue,  who,  since  he  is  seriously  likened  by  his 
pupil  to  the  Apothecary  in  "  Romeo  and  Juliet." 
must  really  have  resembled  the  typical  French- 
man as  depicted  by  Smollett  and  Rowlandson. 
Boileau  was  a  conscientious  teacher,  but  a  mis- 
erable caterer ;  and  young  Angelo,  after  nar- 
rowly escaping  collapse  from  starvation  and  close 
confinement,  was  eventually  removed  from  his 
care.  He  passed,  in  the  first  instance,  to  a  M. 
Liviez,  whose  wife  was  English,  and  (notwith- 
standing an  undeniable  squint)  of  a  shape  suffi- 
cently  elegant  to  have  served  as  the  model  for 
Roubillac's  figure  of  Eloquence  on  the  Argyll 
tomb  at  Westminster  Abbey.  M.  Liviez  had 
been  a  dancer,  and  ballet-master  at  a  London 
theatre.  At  this  date  he  was  a  bon  vivant,  who 
collected  prints.  He  was  also  subject  to  fits  of 
hypochondria  (probably  caused  by  over-eating), 


Angela's  "Reminiscences."  39 

when  he  would  imagine  himself  Apollo,  and 
fiddle  feverishly  to  the  nine  Muses,  typified  for 
the  nonce  by  a  hemicycle  of  chairs.  As  both  he 
and  his  wife  preferred  to  speak  English,  they 
made  no  pretence  to  teach  their  lodger  French  ; 
but,  from  the  point  of  commissariat,  the  change 
from  the  Rue  Poup6  to  the  Rue  Battois  was 
"  removal  from  Purgatory  to  Paradise."  While 
Angelo  was  in  Paris,  Garrick  sent  him  an  intro- 
duction to  Preville,  whom  Sterne  describes  as 
"  Mercury  himself,"  and  who  was,  indeed,  in 
some  respects  Garrick's  rival.  Pre'ville  knew 
Foote ;  and  when  Foote  came  to  the  French 
capital,  he  invited  Angelo  to  a  supper,  at  which 
Preville  was  present.  Foote,  binding  Angelo 
to  secrecy,  delighted  the  company  by  mimick- 
ing their  common  acquaintance,  the  great  Ros- 
cius  ;  and  Pre'ville  in  his  turn  imitated  the  leading 
French  comedians.  All  this  was  not  very  fa- 
vourable to  proficiency  in  the  French  language, 
which  Angelo  would  probably  have  learned 
better  in  M.  Boileau's  garret.  On  the  other 
hand,  under  Motet,  then  the  champion  pareur 
of  the  Continent,  he  became  an  expert  swords- 
man—  able,  and  only  too  willing,  to  take  part 
in  the  encounters  which,  in  the  Paris  of  the  day, 
were  as  common  as  street  rows  in  London. 
But  apart  from  swallowing  the  button  and  some 


40  Miscellanies. 

inches  of  a  foil  when  fencing  with  Lord  Masse- 
reene  in  the  Prison  of  the  Abbaye  (where  that 
nobleman  was  unhappily  in  durance  for  debt), 
he  seems  to  have  enjoyed  an  exceptional  immun- 
ity from  accidents  of  all  kinds. 

He  returned  to  London  in  1775.  ^s  home 
at  this  time  was  at  Carlisle  House,1  in  King's 
Square  Court  (now  Carlisle  Street),  Soho.  It 
was  a  spacious  old  Caroline  mansion  of  red 
brick,  which  had  belonged  to  the  Howard  family, 
and  had  been  bought  by  Dominico  Angelo  from 
Lord  Delaval,  brother  of  Foote's  patron,  the 
Sir  Francis  to  whom  he  dedicated  his  comedy 
of  "  Taste."  There  were  lofty  rooms  with  en- 
riched ceilings  ;  there  was  a  marble-floored  hall ; 
there  was  a  grand  decorated  staircase  painted  by 
Salvator's  pupil,  Henry  Cook.  In  this  building, 
at  the  beginning  of  1763,  its  new  owner  had 
opened  his  fencing  school,  and  subsequently,  in 
the  garden  at  the  back,  had  erected  stables  and 
a  manege,  which  extended  to  Wardour  Street. 
Between  pupils,  resident  and  otherwise,  and 
troops  of  friends,  Carlisle  House  must  always 

1  Not  to  be  confounded  with  Carlisle  House  on  the 
other  side  of  Soho  Square,  which  was  occupied  from  1760 
to  1778  by  the  enterprising  Mrs.  Teresa  Cornelys,  whose 
ballroom  was  in  Sutton  Street,  on  the  site  of  the  present 
Roman  Catholic  Church  of  St.  Patrick. 


Angela's  "Reminiscences."  41 

have  been  well  filled  and  animated.  Garrick, 
who  was  accustomed  to  consult  the  elder  Angelo 
on  matters  of  costume  and  stage  machinery,  was 
often  a  visitor,  and  presented  his  adviser  with  a 
magnificent  silver  goblet  (long  preserved  by  the 
Angelos  as  an  heirloom),  which  held  three  bottles 
of  Burgundy.  Richard  Brinsley  Sheridan  and 
his  father  were  also  friends,  and  it  was  from 
Dominico  Angelo  that  the  younger  man,  as  a 
boy  at  Harrow,  acquired  that  use  of  the  small 
sword  which  was  to  stand  him  in  such  good 
stead  in  his  later  duel  with  Captain  Mathews. 
Wilkes,  again,  resplendent  in  his  favourite  scar- 
let and  gold,  not  seldom  looked  in  on  his  way 
from  his  Westminster  or  Kensington  houses  ; 
and  Foote,  the  Chevalier  D'lion,  and  General 
Paoli  were  constant  guests.  Home  Tooke, 
who  lived  hard  by  in  Dean  Street,  was  another 
intimate  ;  and,  when  he  was  not  discussing  con- 
temporary politics  with  Wilkes  and  Tom  Sheri- 
dan, would  sometimes  enliven  the  company  by 
singing  a  parody  on  "  God  save  the  King,"  which 
was  not  entirely  to  the  loyal  taste  of  the  elder 
Angelo.  Bach  of  the  harpsichord.1  with  Abel  of 

1  This  was  John  Christian  Bach,  Bach's  son,  familiarly 
known  as  "  English  Bach."  Angelo  calls  him  Sebastian, 
but  John  Sebastian  Bach  died  in  1750.  Bach  and  Abel 
jointly  conducted  Mrs.  Cornelys'  concerts. 


42  Miscellanies. 

the  viol-da-gamba,  were  next-door  neighbours 
and  free  of  the  house  ;  Bartolozzi  the  engraver, 
and  his  inseparable  Cipriani,  were  on  an  almost 
equally  favoured  footing.  Another  habitut  was 
Gainsborough,  whose  passion  for  music  is  his- 
torical, and  from  whom  any  one  could  extract  a 
sketch  in  return  for  a  song  or  a  tune.  The  walls 
of  Abel's  room  were  covered  by  drawings  ac- 
quired in  this  manner,  and  pinned  loosely  to 
the  paper-hangings,  —  drawings  which  afterwards 
fetched  their  price  at  Langford's  in  the  Piazza. 
Besides  these,  came  Philip  de  Loutherbourg, 
whom  Dominico  Angelo  had  introduced  to  Gar- 
rick  as  scene  painter  for  Drury  Lane  ;  and 
Canaletto,  whom  he  had  known  at  Venice  ;  and 
Zoffany  ;  and  George  Stubbs,  the  author  of  the 
"  Anatomy  of  the  Horse,"  who  carried  on  his 
studies  in  the  Carlisle  House  Riding  School,  no 
doubt  taking  for  model,  among  others,  that 
famous  white  charger  Monarch,  of  which  the 
presentment  survives  to  posterity,  under  King 
William  III.  of  immortal  memory,  in  West's 
"  Battle  of  the  Boyne."  1  "  All  the  celebrated 
horse  painters  of  the  last,  and  some  of  the  vet- 
erans of  the  present  age,"  says  the  author  of  the 

1  The  "  Battle  of  the  Boyne  "  was  engraved  by  John 
Hall,  Raimbach's  master.  See  post,  "  An  English  En- 
graver in  Paris." 


Angela's  "Reminiscences."  45 

"Reminiscences,"  "were  constant  visitors  at 
our  table  or  at  the  man&ge."  Lastly,  an  enthusi- 
astic, though  scarcely  artistic,  amateur  of  the 
Carlisle  Street  stud  was  the  corpulent  "  Hero 
of  Culloden,"  —  otherwise  "  Billy  the  Butcher." 
If  not  the  greatest,  he  was  certainly  the  heaviest 
prince  in  Christendom,  since  he  rode  some  four- 
and-twenty  stone,  and,  as  a  boy,  Harry  Angelo 
well  remembered  the  significant  sidelong  dip  of 
the  carriage  when  His  Royal  Highness  poised 
his  ponderous  body  on  the  step. 

An  establishment  upon  the  scale  and  tradi- 
tions of  Carlisle  House  (and  there  was  also  a 
"cake-house  "  or  country-box  at  Acton,  for  which 
Zoffany  painted  decorations)  could  only  have 
been  maintained  at  considerable  expense.  But 
in  this  respect  Dominico  Angelo  seems  to  have 
been  unusually  fortunate,  even  for  a  foreigner. 
Within  a  short  period  after  his  arrival  in  England 
his  income,  according  to  his  son,  was  over  two 
thousand  a  year ;  and  this  sum,  in  the  height 
of  his  prosperity,  was  nearly  doubled.  After 
Harry  Angelo's  account  of  his  life  in  Paris,  his 
records,  always  disconnected,  grow  looser  in 
chronology ;  added  to  which,  it  is  never  quite 
easy  to  distinguish  his  personal  recollections 
from  the  mere  floating  hearsay  of  a  retentive 
but  capricious  memory.  One  of  his  earliest 


44  Miscellanies. 

experiences,  however,  on  returning  to  England, 
must  have  been  his  attendance,  in  December, 
1775,  at  the  trial,  in  the  Old  Bailey,  of  Mrs. 
Margaret  Caroline  Rudd,  for  complicity  in  the 
forgery  for  which  the  Brothers  Perreau  were 
subsequently  hanged.1  His  description  of  this 
fair-haired  siren  suggests  a  humbler  Becky  Sharp 
or  Valerie  Marneffe,  and  there  can  be  little 
doubt  that,  as  he  implies,  she  owed  her  unde- 
served acquittal  to  the  "  irresistible  power  of 
fascination"  which  captivated  Boswell,  and  inter- 
ested even  his  "illustrious  Friend."  Another 
incident  at  which  Angelo  assisted  shortly  after- 
wards, and  which  it  is  also  possible  to  place 
precisely,  was  the  riot  that,  in  February,  1776, 
accompanied  the  attempt  to  produce  at  Drury 
Lane  Parson  Bate's  unpopular  opera  of  "  The 
Blackamoor  wash'd  White."  Angelo  was  one 
of  a  boxful  of  the  author's  supporters,  who  were 
forced  to  retire  under  the  furious  cannonade  of 
"apples,  oranges,  and  other  such  missiles,"  to 
which  they  were  exposed.  But  a  still  more 
important  theatrical  event  was  his  presence  on 

1  One  wonders  whether  Thackeray  was  thinking  of 
this  cause  cetebre  in  "  Denis  Duval,"  where  there  is  a  Miss 
Rudge  and  a  Farmer  Perreau.  Angelo,  it  may  be  added, 
was  present  at  the  hanging  at  Tyburn  of  M.  de  la  Motte, 
an  actual  character  in  the  same  book. 


Angela's  "Reminiscences."  45 

that  historic  June  10,  1776,  when  Garrick  bade 
farewell  to  the  stage.  He  and  his  mother  were 
in  Mrs.  Garrick's  box,  and  the  two  ladies  con- 
tinued sobbing  so  long  after  they  had  quitted 
the  house  as  to  prompt  the  ironic  comment 
of  the  elder  Angelo  that  they  could  not  have 
grieved  more  at  the  great  man's  funeral  itself. 
Harry  Angelo  was  also  a  spectator  of  the  prog- 
ress to  Tyburn,  in  the  following  February,  of 
the  unfortunate  Dr.  Dodd,  to  whom,  and  to  the 
horrors  of  "  Execution  Day"  in  general,  he  de- 
votes some  of  the  latter  pages  of  his  first  volume. 
"  His  [Dodd's]  corpse-like  appearance  produced 
an  awful  picture  of  human  woe.  Tens  of  thou- 
sands of  hats,  which  formed  a  black  mass,  as 
the  coach  advanced  were  taken  off  simultane- 
ously, and  so  many  tragic  faces  exhibited  a 
spectacle  the  effect  of  which  is  beyond  the 
power  of  words  to  describe.  Thus  the  proces- 
sion travelled  onwards  through  the  multitude, 
whose  silence  added  to  the  awfulness  of  the 
scene."  Two  years  later  Angelo  witnessed  the 
execution  of  another  clergyman.  James  Hack- 
man,  who  was  hanged  for  shooting  Lord  Sand- 
wich's mistress,  Miss  Martha  Reay.  The 
murder  —  it  will  be  remembered  —  took  place 
in  the  Piazza  at  Covent  Garden,  as  the  lady  was 
leaving  the  theatre,  and  Angelo,  according  to  his 


46  Miscellanies. 

own  account,  had  only  quitted  it  himself  a  few 
minutes  before.  He  afterwards  saw  the  body 
of  the  hapless  criminal  under  dissection  at  Sur- 
geons' Hall, — a  gruesome  testimony  to  the 
truth  of  Hogarth's  final  plate  in  the  "  Four 
Stages  of  Cruelty." 

The  above,  the  Gordon  riots  of  '80,  and  the 
burning  in  '92  of  Wyatt's  Pantheon,  are  some 
of  the  few  things  in  Angelo's  first  volume  which 
it  is  practicable  to  date  with  certainty.  The 
second  volume  is  scarcely  more  than  a  sequence 
of  headed  paragraphs,  roughly  parcelled  into  sec- 
tions, and  difficult  to  sample.  Like  his  father 
(who  died  at  Eton  in  1802),  he  became  a  "  mas- 
ter of  the  sword,"  and  like  him,  again,  he  lived 
upon  terms  of  quasi-familiarity  with  many  titled 
practitioners  of  that  art, — being,  indeed,  upon 
one  occasion  the  guest  of  the  Duke  of  Sussex 
at  the  extremely  select  Neapolitan  Club,  an 
honour  which  —  as  the  Prince  of  Wales  was 
also  present  —  seems  to  have  been  afterwards 
regarded  as  too  good  to  be  believed.  Like 
Dominico  Angelo,  also,  he  had  an  extensive  ac- 
quaintance with  the  artists  and  actors  of  his  day. 
He  had  himself  learned  drawing  at  Eton  under 
the  Prince's  master,  Alexander  Cozens,  the 
apostle  of  "  blottesque,"  and  had  studied  a  little 
with  Bartolozzi  and  Cipriani.  He  had  even 


Angela's  "Reminiscences."  47 

ventured  upon  a  few  caricatures,  in  particular 
one  of  Lady  Queensberry's  black  protege",  Sou- 
bise  ;  and  he  was  intimate  with  Thomas  Rowland- 
son,  whom  he  had  known  from  boyhood,  and 
followed  to  his  grave  in  April,  1827.  When 
Rowlandson  was  on  his  continental  travels,  An- 
gelo  was  living  in  Paris,  and  he  possessed  many 
of  the  drawings  which  his  friend  executed  at 
this  time.  In  London  they  were  frequently 
companions  at  Vauxhall  and  other  places  of 
amusement,  where  Rowlandson's  busy  pencil 
found  its  field  of  activity ;  and  together  they 
often  heard  the  chimes  at  midnight  in  the  house 
at  Beaufort  Buildings  inhabited  by  Rowland- 
son's  fat  Maecenas,  the  banker  Mitchel,  one  of 
whose  favourite  guests  was  Peter  Pindar.  An- 
gelo  gives  a  good  many  anecdotes  which  have 
been  utilised  by  Rowlandson's  biographers  ;  but 
perhaps  the  least  hackneyed  record  of  their 
alliance  is  contained  in  the  pages  which  describe 
their  joint  visit  to  Portsmouth  to  see  the  French 
prizes  after  Lord  Howe's  victory  of  the  ist 
June,  1794.  Angelo  got  down  first,  and  went 
on  board  the  largest  French  vessel,  the  Sans 
Pareil  (80  guns).  He  gives  a  graphic  account  of 
the  appalling  devastation,  — the  decks  ploughed 
up  by  the  round  shot,  the  masts  gone  by  the 
board,  the  miserable  boyish  crew,  the  hogshead 


48  Miscellanies. 

of  spirits  to  keep  up  their  courage  in  action,  the 
jumble  of  dead  and  dying  in  the  'tween  decks, 
and  above  all,  the  terrible,  sickening  stench. 
On  Howe's  vessel,  the  Queen  Charlotte,  on  the 
contrary,  there  was  scarcely  a  trace  of  battle, 
though  another  ship,  the  Brunswick,  had  suffered 
to  a  considerable  extent.  Rowlandson  joined 
Angelo  at  Portsmouth,  and  they  witnessed  to- 
gether the  landing  of  the  prisoners.  Afterwards 
they  visited  Forton,  where,  upon  leaving  one  of 
the  sick  wards,  Rowlandson  made  a  ghastly 
study  of  a  dying  "  Mounseer"  sitting  up  in  bed 
to  write  his  will,  a  priest  with  a  crucifix  at  his 
side.  By  this  time  Angelo  had  had  enough  of 
the  horrors  of  war,  and  he  returned  to  town, 
leaving  Rowlandson  to  go  on  to  Southampton  to 
make  —  so  he  says  —  sketches  of  Lord  Moira's 
embarkation  for  La  Vende'e.  Here,  however, 
the  writer's  recollection  must  have  failed  him, 
for  Lord  Moira's  fruitless  expedition  was  nearly 
a  year  old.  What  Rowlandson  no  doubt  saw 
was  his  Lordship's  departure  for  Ostend  to  join 
the  Duke  of  York.  Angelo  speaks  highly  of 
the — for  Rowlandson  —  unusual  finish  and  spirit 
of  these  drawings,  with  their  boatloads  of 
soldiers  and  studies  of  shipping.  They  were 
purchased  by  Fores  of  Piccadilly,  but  do  not 
appear  to  have  been  reproduced.  There  is, 


Angela's  "  Reminiscences.'"  49 

however,  at  South  Kensington  a  sketch  by 
Rowlandson  of  the  French  prizes  coming  into 
Portsmouth,  which  must  have  been  made  at 
this  date. 

Another  associate  of  Angelo,  and  also  of 
Rowlandson,  was  John  (or  more  familiarly, 
Jack)  Bannister,  the  actor.  Bannister  and 
Rowlandson  had  been  students  together  at  the 
Royal  Academy,  and  had  combined  in  wor- 
rying, by  mimicry  and  caricature,  gruff  Richard 
Wilson,  who  had  succeeded  Frank  Hayman 
as  librarian.  In  the  subsequent  pranks  of  this 
practical  joking  age,  Angelo,  who  had  known 
them  both  from  boyhood,  often  made  a  third  ; 
and  he  was  present  upon  an  occasion  which  was 
as  unfeignedly  pathetic  as  Garrick's  famous  fare- 
well,—  the  farewell  of  Bannister  to  the  stage. 
Many  of  the  anecdotes  contained  in  the  enter- 
tainment which  preceded  this  leave-taking  — 
namely,  "  Bannister's  Budget,"  —  were  included 
by  permission  in  the  "Reminiscences;"  and 
Angelo,  who  had  learned  elocution  from  Tom 
Sheridan,  and  was  an  excellent  amateur  actor, 
more  than  once  played  for  Bannister's  benefits, 
notably  at  the  Italian  Opera  House  in  1792  as 
Mrs.  Cole  in  Footers  "  Minor,"  and  in  1800 
before  the  Royal  Family  at  Windsor  as  Papillon 
in  "  The  Liar,"  also  by  Foote.  On  this  latter 
4 


$o  Miscellanies. 

occasion  the  bill  records  that  Mr.  H.  Angelo, 
"  by  particular  desire,"  obliged  with  "  A  Solo 
Duet ;  or,  Ballad  Singers  in  Cranbourn  Alley." 
These  were  by  no  means  his  only  dramatic  essays. 
At  the  pretty  little  private  theatre  which,  in 
1788,  that  emphatically  lively  nobleman,  Rich- 
ard, seventh  Earl  of  Barrymore,  erected  at  War- 
grave-on-Thames,  he  was  a  frequent  performer. 
His  first,  or  one  of  his  first  parts,  was  that 
of  Dick  in  Vanbrugh's  "  Confederacy,"  when 
Barrymore  played  Brass ;  and  a  later  and 
favourite  impersonation  was  Worsdale's  rdle  of 
Lady  Pentweazel  in  Foote's  "  Taste."  Angelo  is 
careful,  however,  to  explain  that  the  exigencies 
of  his  professional  engagements  did  not  permit 
him  to  go  to  the  full  length  of  the  Wargrave  Court 
of  Comus  —  some  of  whose  revels  must  have 
closely  resembled  that  "  blind  hookey  "  by  which 
the  footman  in  "The  Newcomes"  described 
the  doings  of  Lord  Farintosh.  As  he  seems, 
nevertheless,  to  have  accompanied  Barrymore 
to  low  spouting  clubs  like  Jacob's  Well ;  to  have 
driven  with  him  at  night  through  the  long  strag- 
gling street  of  Colnbrook,  while  his  sportive 
Lordship  was  industriously  "  fanning  the  day- 
lights," i.e.  breaking  the  windows  to  right  and 
left  with  his  whip  ;  and  to  have  serenaded  Mrs. 
Fitzherbert  in  his  company  at  Brighton,  —  he 


Angela's  u  Reminiscences."  $i 

had  certainly  sufficient  opportunities  for  studying 
the  "caprices  and  eccentricities"  of  this  illus- 
trious and  erratic  specimen  of  what  the  late 
Mortimer  Collins  was  wont  to  describe  as  the 
"  strong  generation."  Besides  acting  at  War- 
grave,  he  had  also  often  joined  in  the  private 
theatricals  at  Brandenburgh  House,  then  the 
Hammersmith  home  of  Lord  Berkeley's  sister, 
that  Margravine  of  Anspach  whose  comedy  of 
''The  Sleep- Walker  "  Walpole  had  printed  at  the 
Strawberry  Hill  Press.  Lastly,  he  was  a  mem- 
ber of  the  short-lived  Pic-Nic  Society  inaugu- 
rated by  Lady  Buckinghamshire,  an  association 
which  combined  balls  and  private  plays  with 
suppers  on  the  principle  of  the  line  in  Gold- 
smith's "  Retaliation", — 

"  Each  guest  brought  his  dish,  and  the  feast  was  united." 

Lady  Buckinghamshire,  a  large  personage,  with 
a  good  digestion  and  an  unlimited  appetite  for 
pleasure,  was  one  of  the  three  card-loving  leaders 
of  fashion  satirised  so  mercilessly  by  Gillray 
as  "Faro's  Daughters,"  —  her  fellow-sinners 
being  Lady  Archer  and  Mrs.  Concannon.  But 
whatever  may  have  happened  over  the  green 
tables  at  St.  James's  Square,  "  gaming"  —  says 
Angelo  —  "formed  no  part  of  the  plan  of  the 
Pic-Nics."  Not  the  less,  they  had  their  ele- 


5  2  Miscellanies. 

ment  of  chance.  It  was  the  practice  to  draw 
lots  for  furnishing  the  supper,  an  arrangement 
which,  if  it  sometimes  permitted  the  drawers 
to  escape  with  a  pound  cake  or  a  bag  of  China 
oranges,  as  often  imposed  upon  them  the  en- 
forced provision  of  a  dozen  of  champagne  or  a 
three-guinea  Perigord  pie. 

It  would  take  a  lengthy  article  to  exhaust  the 
budget  of  these  chaotic  memories,  even  if  one 
made  rigid  selection  of  those  incidents  only  in 
which  the  writer  affirms  that  he  was  personally 
concerned.  Not  a  few  of  the  stories,  however, 
are  common  property,  and  are  told  as  well  else- 
where. For  instance,  Angelo  repeats  the  anec- 
dote of  Goldsmith's  "  Croaker,"  Shuter,  who, 
following —  for  his  "  Cries  of  London  "  —  a  par- 
ticularly musical  vendor  of  silver  eels,  found  to 
his  vexation  that  on  this  particular  occasion  the 
man  was  unaccountably  mute.  Questioning  him 
at  length,  the  poor  fellow  explained,  with  a  burst 
of  tears,  that  his  vife  had  died  that  day,  and  that 
he  could  not  cry.  This  is  related  in  Taylor's 
"  Records,"  and  no  doubt  in  a  dozen  places 
besides.  Similarly,  the  anecdote  of  Hayman 
the  painter,  and  the  Marquis  of  Granby,  both 
gouty,  having  a  bout  with  the  gloves  previous 
to  a  sitting,  is  to  be  found  in  the  "  Somerset 
House  Gazette  "  of  "  Ephraim  Hardcastle  " 


Angela's  "Reminiscences."  53 

(W.  H.  Pyne)  ;  and  it  has  been  suggested,  we 
know  not  upon  what  authority,  that  Pyne  had  a 
good  deal  to  do  with  Angelo's  chronicles.  Be 
this  as  it  may,  there  are  plenty  of  anecdotes 
which  are  so  obviously  connected  with  the  nar- 
rator that,  even  if  all  the  make-weights  be  dis- 
carded, a  residue  remains  which  is  far  too  large 
to  be  dealt  with  here.  We  shall  confine  our- 
selves to  the  few  pages  which  refer  to  Byron, 
whom  Angelo  seems  to  have  known  well. 
Byron,  who  had  been  one  of  Angelo's  pupils  at 
Harrow,  had  interested  himself  in  establishing 
Angelo  as  a  fencing  master  at  Cambridge,  where 
he  entertained  him  and  Theodore  Hook  at  din- 
ner, seeing  them  off  himself  afterwards  by  the 
London  stage,  duly  fortified  with  stirrup  cups 
of  the  famous  St.  John's  College  beer.  When 
later  Byron  left  Cambridge  for  town,  Angelo 
seems  to  have  taken  great  pains  to  find  a  book 
which  his  noble  friend  wanted  in  order  to  decide 
a  wager,  and  his  eventual  success  increased  the 
favour  in  which  he  stood.  He  was  subse- 
quently in  the  habit  of  giving  Byron  lessons  at 
the  Albany  in  the  broadsword,  —  a  fearsome 
exercise  which  was  chosen  in  view  of  the  pupil's 
tendency  to  flesh,  and  for  which  he  elaborately 
handicapped  himself  with  furs  and  flannels.  Of 
these  relations  between  Angelo  and  Byron  at 


54  Miscellanies. 

this  date  a  memento  is  still  said  to  survive  at 
Mr.  John  Murray's  in  Albemarle  Street.  It  is 
a  screen  made  by  Angelo  for  his  patron.  On 
one  side  are  all  the  eminent  pugilists  from 
Broughton  to  Jackson  ;  on  the  other  the  great 
actors  from  Betterton  to  Kean.  When  Byron 
left  the  country  in  1816  the  screen  was  sold 
with  his  effects,  and  so  passed  into  the  pious 
hands  of  its  present  possessor. 

Reference  has  already  been  made  to  what  Mr. 
Egerton  Castle  accurately  describes  as  Angelo's 
"  graceful  ease  "  in  eluding  dates,  and  it  should 
be  added  that  he  gives  very  few  particulars  re- 
specting his  personal  history  or  his  professional 
establishments.  At  first,  it  may  be  assumed,  he 
taught  fencing  at  his  father's  school  in  Carlisle 
Street.  Later  on,  the  salle  d'armes  which  he  men- 
tions oftenest  is  that  formerly  belonging  to  the 
Frenchman  Redas  in  the  Opera  House  buildings 
at  the  corner  of  the  Haymarket,  almost  facing 
the  Orange  Coffee  House,  then  the  chosen  re- 
sort of  foreigners  of  all  sorts.  When  the  Opera 
was  burned  down  in  1789,  these  rooms  were  de- 
stroyed, and  Angelo  apparently  transferred  his 
quarters  to  Bond  Street.  Under  the  heading 
"  My  Own  Boastings,"  he  gives  a  list  of  his 
titled  and  aristocratic  pupils  to  the  year  1817, 
and  it  is  certainly  an  imposing  one.  "  In  the 


Angela's  "Reminiscences."  55 

year  of  [Edmund]  Kean's  benefit"  [1825?]  he 
strained  his  thigh  when  fencing  with  the  actor, 
and  was  thenceforth  obliged  "to  bid  adieu  to 
the  practical  exertions  of  the  science."  His  last 
years  seem  to  have  been  passed  in  retirement  at 
a  village  near  Bath,  and  from  his  description  of 
his  means  as  "  a  small  annuity  "  it  must  be  pre- 
sumed that  he  was  poor.  He  had  been  married, 
and  he  speaks  of  two  of  his  sons  to  whom  the 
Duke  of  York  had  given  commissions  in  the 
army  ;  but  that  is  all  he  says  on  the  subject. 
Beside  the  two  volumes  of  "Reminiscences," 
he  compiled  another  miscellany  of  memories  en- 
titled "  Angelo's  Pic-Nic,"  to  which  George 
Cruikshank  contributed  a  characteristic  frontis- 
piece. He  also  published  a  translation  in  smaller 
form  of  his  father's  "  Ecole  des  Armes,"  a 
magnificent  subscription  folio  which  had  first 
appeared  in  I76}.1  The  translation  was  by 
Rowlandson,  and  the  book  so  produced  was 
afterwards  inserted  under  the  head  Escrime  in 
the  "Encyclopedic"  of  Diderot  and  D'Alem- 
bert.  Rowlandson  also  etched  twenty-four 

1  Dominico  Angelo,  Lord  Pembroke,  and  the  Chevalier 
D'lion  stood  as  models  for  the  illustrations  to  this  book, 
which  were  designed  by  Gwynn  the  painter.  They  were 
engraved  by  Grignion,  Ryland,  and  Raimbach's  master, 
Hall. 


5  6  Miscellanies. 

plates  for  Angelo  on  the  use  of  the  Hungarian 
and  Highland  broadsword,  which  were  put 
forth  in  1798-9  by  T.  Egerton  of  the  Military 
Library  near  Whitehall,  the  adventurous  pub- 
lisher who  subsequently  issued  the  first  three 
novels  of  Jane  Austen. 


THE    LATEST   LIFE   OF   STEELE. 

ONE  of  the  things  that  most  pleased  Lord 
Macaulay  in  connection  with  his  famous 
article  in  the  Edinburgh  on  Miss  Aikin's  "  Life 
of  Addison,"  was  the  confirmation  of  a  minor 
statement  which  he  had  risked  upon  internal 
evidence.  He  had  asserted  confidently  that 
Addison  could  never  have  spoken  of  Steele  in 
the  "  Old  Whig  "  as  "  Little  Dickey  ;  "  and  by 
a  stroke  of  good  fortune,  a  few  days  after  his 
article  appeared,  he  found  the  evidence  he  re- 
quired. At  a  bookstall  in  Holborn  he  happened 
upon  Chetwood's  "  History  of  the  Stage,"  and 
promptly  discovered  that  "  Little  Dickey"  was 
the  nickname  of  Henry  Morris,  a  diminutive 
actor  who  had  made  his  first  appearance  as 
"Dicky"  in  Farquhar's  "Constant  Couple." 
Norris  —  it  may  be  added  —  must  have  been  a 
familiar  figure  to  both  Addison  and  Steele,  be- 
cause, besides  taking  a  female  part  in  "The 
Funeral,"  he  had  played  Mr.  Tipkin  in  "  The 
Tender  Husband,"  which  contained  "  many 
applauded  strokes"  from  Addison's  hand  ;  and, 


$8  Miscellanies. 

only  three  years  before  Addison  wrote  the  "  Old 
Whig,"  had  also  acted  in  Addison's  own  comedy 
of  "  The  Drummer."  But  the  anecdote,  with 
its  tardy  exposure  of  a  time-honoured  blunder, 
aptly  illustrates  the  main  function  of  the  modern 
biographer  who  deals  with  the  great  men  of  the 
last  century.  Rightly  or  wrongly  —  no  doubt 
rightly  as  regards  their  leading  characteristics  — 
a  certain  conception  of  them  has  passed  into 
currency,  and  it  is  no  longer  practicable  to  alter 
it  materially.  A  "  new  view,"  if  sufficiently  in- 
genious or  paradoxical,  may  appear  to  hold  its 
own  for  a  moment,  but,  as  a  rule,  it  lasts  no 
longer.  Swift,  Addison,  Pope,  Steele,  Field- 
ing, Goldsmith,  Johnson,  remain  essentially 
what  the  common  consent  of  the  past  has  left 
them,  and  the  utmost  that  latter-day  industry  can 
effect  lies  in  the  rectification  of  minute  facts,  and 
the  tracing  out  of  neglected  threads  of  inquiry. 
Especially  may  it  concern  itself  with  that  literary 
nettoyage  &  sec  which  has  for  its  object  the  atten- 
uation, and,  if  possible,  the  entire  dispersing,  of 
doubtful  or  discreditable  tradition. 

Of  this  method  of  biography,  the  "  Life  of 
Steele,"1  by  Mr.  George  A.  Aitken  is  a  favour- 
able, and  even  typical,  example.  That  Mr. 

1  The  Life  of  Richard  Steele.  By  George  A.  Aitken, 
2  vols.,  London:  Isbister,  1889. 


The  Latest  Life  of  Steele.  59 

Aitken  is  an  enthusiast  is  plain  ;  but  he  is  also 
an  enthusiast  of  exceptional  patience,  acuteness, 
and  tenacity  of  purpose.  He  manifestly  set  out 
determined  to  know  all  that  could  possibly  be 
known  about  Steele,  and  for  some  five  years 
(to  judge  by  his  first  advertisements)  he  laboured 
unvveariedly  at  his  task.  The  mere  authorities 
referred  to  in  his  notes  constitute  an  ample  liter- 
ature of  the  period,  while  the  consultation  of 
registers,  the  rummaging  of  records,  and  the 
general  disturbance  of  contemporary  pamphlets 
and  documents  which  his  inquiries  must  obvi- 
ously have  entailed,  are  fairly  enough  to  take 
one's  breath  away.  That  in  these  days  of  hasty 
research  and  hastier  publication  such  a  train  of 
investigation  should  have  been  undertaken  at  all, 
is  remarkable  ;  that  so  prolonged  and  arduous 
a:i  effort  should  have  been  selected  as  the 
diploma-work  of  a  young  and  previously  untried 
writer,  is  more  remarkable  still.  It  would  have 
been  discouraging  in  the  last  degree  if  so  much 
industry  and  perseverance  had  been  barren  of 
result,  and  it  is  satisfactory  to  find  that  Mr. 
Aitken  has  been  fortunate  enough  to  add  con- 
siderably to  the  existing  material  respecting 
Steele.  In  the  pages  that  follow  it  is  proposed, 
not  so  much  to  recapitulate  Steele's  story,  as  to 
emphasise,  in  their  order,  some  of  the  more  im- 


60  Miscellanies. 

portant  discoveries  which  are  due  to  his  latest 
biographer. 

Richard  Steele,  as  we  know  already,  was  born 
at  Dublin  in  March,  1672  (N.  S.),  being  thus 
about  six  weeks  older  than  Addison,  who  first 
saw  the  light  in  the  following  May.  Beyond 
some  vague  references  in  the  Tatler,  nothing 
definite  has  hitherto  been  ascertained  about  his 
parents,  although  his  father  (also  Richard 
Steele)  was  reported  to  have  been  a  lawyer. 
But  Mr.  Aitken's  investigations  establish  the 
fact  that  one  Richard  Steele,  of  Mountain 
(Monkstown),  an  attorney,  was  married  in  1670 
to  a  widow  named  Elinor  Symes.  These  were 
Steele's  father  and  mother.  Steele  himself  tells 
us  (Tatter,  No.  181)  that  the  former  died  when 
he  was  "  not  quite  five  years  of  age,"  and  his 
mother,  apparently,  did  not  long  survive  her 
husband.  The  boy  fell  into  the  charge  of  his 
uncle,  Henry  Gascoigne,  secretary  to  the  first 
and  second  Dukes  of  Ormond.  Gascoigne,  con- 
cerning whom  Mr.  Aitken  has  recovered  many 
particulars,  had  married  a  sister  of  one  of 
Steele's  parents.  Through  Ormond's  influence 
his  nephew  was  placed,  in  November,  1684,  upon 
the  foundation  at  the  Charterhouse.  Two  years 
later  he  was  joined  there  by  Addison.  It  was 
then  the  reign  of  Dr.  Thomas  Walker,  after- 


The  Latest  Life  of  Steele.  61 

wards  "  the  ingenious  T.  W."  of  the  Spectator, 
but  nothing  has  been  recovered  as  to  Steele's 
school-days.  In  November,  1689,  he  was  elected 
to  Christ  Church,  Oxford,  with  the  usual  exhi- 
bition of  a  boy  on  the  Charterhouse  foundation, 
and  he  matriculated  in  March,  1690,  —  Addison, 
then  a  demy  at  Magdalen,  having  preceded  him. 
Letters  already  printed  by  Mr.  Wills  and  others 
show  that  Steele  tried  hard  for  a  studentship 
at  Christ  Church  ;  but  eventually  he  became  a 
post-master  at  Merton,  his  college-tutor  being 
Dr.  Welbore  Ellis,  to  whom  he  subsequently 
refers  in  the  preface  to  the  "  Christian  Hero." 
Of  his  intercourse  with  Addison  at  Smithfield 
and  Oxford  no  record  has  come  to  light,  and  it 
is  therefore  still  open  to  the  essayist  to  piece  the 
imperfections  of  this  period  by  fictitious  scores 
with  the  apple-woman  or  imaginary  musings  on 
the  Merton  terraces.  But,  in  any  such  excur- 
sions in  search  of  the  picturesque,  the  fact  that 
Steele  was  older  instead  of  younger  than  Addi- 
son cannot  safely  be  disregarded. 

Why  Richard  Steele  quitted  the  University  to 
become  a  "  gentleman  of  the  army  "  still  remains 
obscure.  His  University  career,  if  not  brilliant, 
had  been  respectable,  and  he  left  Merton  with 
the  love  of  "  the  whole  Society."  Perhaps,  like 
his  compatriot  Goldsmith,  he  preferred  a  red  coat 


62  Miscellanies. 

to  a  black  one.  At  all  events,  in  1694,  his  rest- 
less Irish  spirit  prompted  him  to  enlist  as  a  cadet 
in  the  second  troop  of  Horse  Guards,  then  com- 
manded by  his  uncle's  patron,  James  Butler, 
second  Duke  of  Ormond.  When  he  thus 
"  mounted  a  war-horse,  with  a  great  sword  in 
his  hand,  and  planted  himself  behind  King  Wil- 
liam the  Third  against  Lewis  the  Fourteenth  " 
he  lost  (he  says)  "  the  succession  to  a  very  good 
estate  in  the  county  of  Wexford  in  Ireland  ; " 
for  which,  failing  further  particulars,  we  may 
perhaps  provisionally  read  "  castle  in  Spain." 
His  next  appearance  was  among  the  crowd  of 
minstrels  who,  in  black-framed  folio,  mourned 
Queen  Mary's  death.  Already  he  had  written 
verse,  and  had  even  burned  an  entire  comedy  at 
college.  The  chief  interest,  however,  of  "The 
Procession,"  which  was  the  particular  name  of 
this  particular  "  melodious  tear,"  was  its  diplo- 
matic dedication  to  John,  Lord  Cutts,  himself  a 
versifier,  and  what  was  more  important,  also  the 
newly  appointed  colonel  of  the  Coldstream 
Guards.  Cutts  speedily  sought  out  his  anony- 
mous panegyrist,  took  him  into  his  household, 
and  eventually  offered  him  a  standard  in  his 
regiment.  There  is  evidence,  in  the  shape  of 
transcripts  from  the  Blenheim  MSS.,  that  Steele 
was  acting  as  Cults'  secretary  circa  1696-7  (a 


The  Latest  Life  of  Steele.  63 

circumstance  of  which,  by  the  way,  there  is 
confirmation  in  Carleton's  "  Memoirs1'1)  ;  and 
it  has  hitherto  been  supposed  that  by  his  employ- 
er's interest  —  for  Cults  gave  him  little  but  pat- 
ronage—  he  became  a  captain  in  Lucas's  Fusi- 
leers.  Here,  however,  Mr.  Aitken's  cautious 
method  discloses  an  unsuspected  error.  Steele 
is  spoken  of  as  a  captain  as  early  as  1700,  and 
"  Lord  Lucas's  Regiment  of  Foot"  (not  speci- 
fically "  Fusileers  ")  was  only  raised  in  February, 
1702.  If,  therefore,  before  this  date  Steele  had 
any  right  to  the  title  of  captain,  it  must  have 
been  as  captain  in  the  Coldstream  Guards. 
Unfortunately,  all  efforts  to  trace  him  in  the 
records  of  that  regiment  have  hitherto  proved 
unsuccessful.  Neither  as  captain  nor  as  ensign 
could  its  historian,  General  MacKinnon,  though 
naturally  watchful  on  the  point,  find  any  mention 
of  his  name. 

By  1700  the  former  post-master  of  Merton 
had  become  a  seasoned  man  about  town,  a  rec- 
ognised wit,  and  an  habitual  frequenter  of  Will's. 
"  Dick  Steel  is  yours,"  writes  Congreve  to  a 

1  "At  the  time  appointed"  (says  Carleton,  writing  at 
the  date  of  the  Assassination  Plot  of  1696)  "  I  waited  on 
his  lordship  [Lord  Cults],  where  I  met  Mr.  Steel  (now 
Sir  Richard,  and  at  that  time  his  secretary),  who  immedi- 
ately introduced  me."  ("  Memoirs,"  1728,  ch.  iii.) 


64  Miscellanies. 

friend  early  in  the  year.  Already,  too,  there 
are  indications  that  he  had  begun  to  feel  the 
"want  of  pence  which  vexes  public  men." 
From  this,  however,  as  well  as  his  part  in  the 
coffee-house  crusade  against  Dryden's  "  Quack 
Maurus,"  Blackmore,  we  must  pass  to  Mr. 
Aitken's  next  rectification.  That  Steele  fought 
a  duel  is  already  known.  That  it  was  forced 
upon  him,  that  he  endeavoured  in  every  honour- 
able way  to  evade  it,  and  that  finally,  by  mis- 
adventure, he  all  but  killed  his  man,  have  been 
often  circumstantially  related.  But  the  date  of 
the  occurrence  has  always  been  a  mystery. 
Calling  Luttrell  and  the  Flying-Post  to  his 
aid,  Mr.  Aitken  has  ascertained  that  the  place 
was  Hyde  Park,  the  time  June  16,  1700,  and 
the  other  principal  an  Irishman,  named  Kelly. 
Luttrell's  description  of  Steele  as  "  Capt.  Steele, 
of  the  Lord  Cutts  regiment,"  is  confirmatory 
of  the  assumption  that  he  was  a  captain  in  the 
Guards.  Whether  this  was  his  only  "  affair  of 
honour,"  or  whether  there  were  others,  is 
doubtful ;  but  it  is  not  improbable  that  the  re- 
pentant spirit  engendered  by  this  event,  for  his 
adversary's  life  long  hung  trembling  in  the  bal- 
ance, is  closely  connected  with  the  publication, 
if  not  the  preparation,  of  the  "  Christian  Hero," 
which  made  its  appearance  a  few  months  later. 


The  Latest  Life  of  Steele.  65 

Upon  the  scheme  of  this  curious  and  by  no 
means  uninstructive  manual,  once  so  nearly  for- 
gotten as  to  be  described  as  a  poem,  it  is  not 
necessary  to  linger  now.  But  it  may  be  noted 
that  it  was  dated  from,  the  Tower  Guard,  where 
it  was  written,  and  that  the  governor  of  the 
Tower  was  the  Lord  Lucas  in  whose  regiment 
Steele  became  an  officer. 

The  year  of  which  the  first  months  witnessed 
the  publication  of  the  "Christian  Hero"  wit- 
nessed in  its  close  the  production  of  Steele's 
first  play,  and,  inconsequently  enough,  the  one 
was  the  cause  of  the  other.  It  was  an  almost 
inevitable  result  of  the  book  that  many  of  the 
author's  former  associates  were  alienated  from 
him,  while  others,  not  nicely  sensitive  to  the 
distinction  drawn  in  Boileau's  ami  de  la  verlu, 
pluidt  que  vertueux,  maliciously  contrasted  his 
precepts  with  his  practice.  Finding  himself 
"slighted"  (he  says)  "instead  of  being  encour- 
aged, for  his  declarations  as  to  religion,"  it  be- 
came "  incumbent  upon  him  to  enliven  his  char- 
acter, for  which  reason  he  writ  the  comedy 
called  '  The  Funeral,'  in  which  (though  full  of 
incidents  that  move  laughter)  Virtue  and  Vice 
appear  just  as  they  ought  to  do."  In  other 
words,  Steele  endeavoured  to  swell  that  tide  of 
reformation  which  Collier  had  set  flowing  by  his 
S 


66  Miscellanies. 

"Short  View  of  the  Immorality  and  Profane- 
ness  of  the  English  Stage,"  and  he  followed  up 
his  first  effort  of  1701  by  the  "  Lying  Lover" 
(1705)  and  the  "  Tender  Husband"  (1705),  the 
second  of  which  was  avowedly  written  "  in 
the  severity  Collier  required."  His  connection 
with  the  purification  of  the  contemporary  drama, 
however,  would  lead  us  too  far  from  the  special 
subject  of  this  paper, — the  revised  facts  of  his 
biography.  Among  these,  the  order  of  the  plays 
as  given  above  is  an  important  item.  Owing 
to  some  traditional  misconception,  the  "  Lying 
Lover,"  which  was  a  rather  over-emphatic  pro- 
test against  duelling,  was  believed  by  all  the 
older  writers  to  be  the  last  of  Steele's  early  dra- 
matic efforts.  As  a  natural  consequence,  its 
being  "  damned  for  its  piety"  was  made  respon- 
sible for  the  author's  long  abstinence  from  the 
task  of  theatrical  regeneration.  Unfortunately 
for  logic,  the  facts  which,  in  this  instance,  Mr. 
Aitken  has  extended  rather  than  discovered,  are 
diametrically  opposed  to  any  such  convenient 
arrangement.  The  "Tender  Husband,"  and 
not  the  "  Lying  Lover,"  was  the  last  of  Steele's 
first  three  plays,  —  that  is  to  say,  the  moralised 
Collier  mixture  was  succeeded  by  a  strong  infu- 
sion of  Moliere,  while,  so  far  from  leaving  off 
writing  for  the  stage,  there  is  abundant  evidence 


The  Latest  Life  of  Steele.  67 

that,  but  for  other  cares  and  more  absorbing 
occupations,  Steele  would  speedily  have  pro- 
ceeded to  ''enliven  his  character"  with  a  fresh 
comedy.  Indeed,  in  a  very  instructive  suit 
against  Christopher  Rich  of  Drury  Lane,  which 
Mr.  Aitken  has  exhumed  from  the  Chancery 
Pleadings  in  the  Record  Office,  mention  is  made 
of  what  may  well  have  been  the  performance  in 
question.  It  was  to  have  treated  a  subject 
essayed  both  by  Gay  and  Mrs.  Centlivre,  the 
"  Election  of  Gotham." 

The  Chancery  suit  above  referred  to,  which 
arose  out  of  the  profits  of  the  "Tender  Hus- 
band," began  in  1707.  Early  in  1702  Steele 
had  become  a  captain  in  Lucas's,  and  between 
that  date  and  1704  must  have  spent  a  consider- 
able portion  of  his  time  at  Landguard  Fort,  do- 
ing garrison  duty  with  his  company.  He  lodged, 
according  to  report,  in  a  farmhouse  at  Walton. 
Mr.  Aitken  prints  from  various  sources  several 
new  letters  which  belong  to  this  period,  to- 
gether with  some  account  of  another  in  the 
long  series  of  lawsuits  about  money  with  which 
Steele's  biography  begins  to  be  plentifully  be- 
sprinkled. In  an  autograph  now  in  the  Mor- 
rison collection,  we  find  him  certifying  with 
Addison  to  the  unimpeachable  character  of  one 
"  Margery  Maplesden,  late  Sutler  at  the  Tilt- 


68  Miscellanies. 

yard  Guard,"  and  we  get  passing  glances  of  him 
at  the  Kit  Cat  Club  and  elsewhere.  Perhaps 
we  are  right,  too,  in  placing  about  this  date  the 
account  of  his  search  for  the  "  philosopher's 
stone."  The  details  of  this  episode  in  his  career 
rest  mainly  upon  the  narrative  of  Mrs.  De  la 
Riviere  Manley,  the  author  of  that  "  cornucopia 
of  scandal,"  the  "  New  Atalantis  ;  "  but  there  is 
little  doubt  that  there  was  ground  for  the  story, 
since  Steele  himself,  in  later  life,  printed,  with- 
out contradiction,  a  reference  to  it  in  Town 
Talk,  and  it  is  besides  connected  with  the 
next  of  Mr.  Aitken's  discoveries.  According  to 
"Rivella,"  an  empiric,  who  found  the  sanguine 
Steele  "  a  bubble  to  his  mind,"  engaged  him  in 
the  pursuit  of  the  magnum  arcanum.  Furnaces 
were  built  without  delay,  and  Steele's  available 
resources  began  to  vanish  rapidly.  In  these 
transactions  Mrs.  Manley's  husband  played 
an  ambiguous  part,  and,  if  we  are  to  believe 
her,  she  herself  impersonated  the  Dea  ex 
machina,  and  warned  Steele  that  he  was  being 
duped.  It  was  not  too  soon.  He  only  just 
saved  his  last  negotiable  property,  his  commis- 
sion, and  had  to  go  into  hiding.  "  Fortune," 
Mrs.  Manley  continues,  "did  more  for  him  in 
his  adversity  than  would  have  lain  in  her  way 
in  prosperity  ;  she  threw  him  to  seek  for  refuge 


The  Latest  Life  of  Steele.  69 

in  a  house  where  was  a  lady  with  very  large 
possessions  ;  he  married  her,  she  settled  all 
upon  him,  and  died  soon  after." 

This  —  and  to  some  extent  it  is  a  corrobora- 
tion  of  the  story  —  was  Steele's  first  wife,  who 
until  now  has  been  little  more  than  a  shifting 
shadow  in  his  biography.  Her  actual  personal- 
ity still  remains  veiled  ;  but  Mr.  Aitken  with 
infinite  pains  has  ascertained  her  name,  and  a 
number  of  facts  about  her  family.  She  was  a 
West  Indian  widow  called  Margaret  Stretch, 
who  had  inherited  an  estate  in  Barbados  of 
;£8)O  a  year  from  her  brother,  Major  Ford. 
Steele  married  her  in  the  spring  of  1705,  and 
buried  her  two  years  later.  There  is  some 
indication  that  her  death  was  caused  by  a  fright 
given  her  (when  enceinte)  by  Steele's  only  sister, 
who  was  insane  ;  but  upon  this  point  nothing 
definite  can  be  affirmed.  Looking  to  the  cir- 
cumstances in  which  (as  narrated  by  Mrs. 
Manley)  the  acquaintanceship  began,  it  is  not 
improbable  that  the  personal  charms  of  the  lady 
had  less  to  do  with  the  marriage  than  the  beaux 
yeux  de  sa  cassette.  In  any  case  Steele  can 
scarcely  escape  the  imputation  which  usually 
attaches  to  the  union  of  a  needy  bachelor  with 
a  wealthy  widow,  and,  as  will  presently  be  seen, 
he  was  not  long  inconsolable. 


70  Miscellanies. 

Whether,  even  at  the  time  of  the  marriage, 
the  Barbados  estate  was  really  productive  of 
much  ready  money  may  be  doubted.  But  in 
August,  1706,  Steele  was  appointed  Gentle- 
man Waiter  to  Queen  Anne's  consort,  Prince 
George  of  Denmark,  and  a  few  weeks  after  his 
wife's  death,  through  the  recommendation  of 
Arthur  Mainwaring,  one  of  the  members  of  the 
Kit  Cat  Club,  Harley,  then  a  Secretary  of  State, 
gave  him  the  post  of  Gazetteer  with  an  in- 
creased salary  of  ^300  a  year.  "  The  writer 
of  the  '  Gazette  '  now,"  says  Hearne  in  May, 
1707,  "is  Captain  Steel",  who  is  the  author  of 
several  romantic  things,  and  is  accounted  an 
ingenious  man."  As  "  Captain  Steele  "  he  con- 
tinued for  many  years  to  be  known,  but  it  is 
assumed  that  he  left  the  army  before  his  second 
marriage,  which  now  followed.  To  his  first 
wife's  funeral  had  come  as  mourner  a  lady  of 
about  nine  and  twenty,  the  daughter  of  a  de- 
ceased gentleman  of  Wales,  and  the  Miss  Mary 
Scurlock  who  has  since  become  historical  as  the 
"  Prue "  of  the  well-known  Steele  letters  in 
the  British  Museum.  That  she  was  an  heiress, 
and,  as  Mrs.  Manleysays,  a  "  cried-up  beauty,1' 
was  known,  though  in  the  absence  of  definite 
pictorial  assurance  of  the  latter  fact,  it  has 
hitherto  been  difficult  to  see  her  with  the  admir- 


The  Latest  Life  of  Steele.  71 

ing  eyes  of  the  enthusiastic  writer  who  signs 
himself  her  "  most  obsequious  obedient  hus- 
band." But  while  unable  to  add  greatly  to  our 
knowledge  of  her  character,  Mr.  Aitken  has 
succeeded  in  discovering  and  copying  her  por- 
trait by  Kneller,  a  portrait  which  sufficiently  jus- 
tifies her  husband's  raptures.  In  Sir  Godfrey's 
"animated  canvas,"  she  is  shown  as  a  very  beau- 
tiful brunette,  in  a  cinnamon  satin  dress,  with  a 
high,  almost  too  high,  forehead,  and  dark,  bril- 
liant eyes.  Steele's  phrase  "  little  wife  "  must 
have  been  a  "dear  diminutive,"  for  she  is  not 
especially  petite,  but  rather  what  Fielding's  Mrs. 
James  would  style  "  a  very  fine  person  of  a 
woman,"  and  she  has  an  arch,  humourous  expres- 
sion which  suggests  the  wit  with  which  she  is 
credited.  From  the  absence  of  a  ring  it  has 
been  conjectured  that  the  portrait  was  taken 
before  marriage.  But  Kneller  was  much  more 
likely  to  have  painted  Mrs.  Steele  than  Miss 
Scurlock,  and  the  simple  explanation  may  be 
either  that  rings  were  neglected  or  that  the 
hands  were  painted  in  from  a  model.  As  in  the 
case  of  Mrs.  Stretch,  Mr.  Aitken  has  collected 
a  mass  of  information  about  Mrs.  Steele's  rela- 
tions. His  good  luck  has  also  helped  him  to 
one  veritable  find.  In  her  letter  to  her  mother 
announcing  her  engagement,  Miss  Scurlock  re- 


72  Miscellanies. 

fers  scornfully  to  a  certain  "  wretched  impudence, 
H.  O.,"  who  had  recently  written  to  her.  This 
was  manifestly  a  rejected  but  still  importunate 
suitor,  although  the  precise  measure  of  his  implied 
iniquity  remained  unrevealed.  From  documents 
now  first  printed  by  Mr.  Aitken,  it  seems  that 
his  name  was  Henry  Owen  of  Glassalt,  Carmar- 
thenshire, and  that  he  was  an  embarrassed  wid- 
ower of  (in  the  circuitous  language  of  the  law) 
"  thirty,  thirty-five,  or  forty  years  of  age  at  the 
most "  —  that  is  to  say,  he  was  over  forty. 
Miss  Scurlock  had  known  him  as  a  neighbour 
from  childhood,  and  for  four  or  five  years  past, 
at  Bath,  at  London,  and  at  other  places,  he, 
being  a  needy  man  with  an  entailed  estate,  had 
been  besieging  her  with  his  addresses.  Only 
two  years  before  her  engagement  to  Steele, 
finding  her  obdurate,  he  had  trumped  up  a  suit 
against  her  for  breach  of  contract  of  marriage, 
which  apparently  was  not  successful.  The 
"Libel"  and  "Answer,"  which  Mr.  Aitken 
prints  from  the  records  of  the  Consistorial 
Court  of  London,  are  more  curious  than  edify- 
ing, and  tend  to  show  that  Owen  was  rather 
a  cur.  But  the  whole  story  is  useful  indirectly 
as  suggesting  that  Miss  Scurlock's  constitu- 
tional prudery  was  not  the  only  reason  why  she 
surrounded  Steele's  worship  of  her  with  so 


The  Latest  Life  of  Steele.  7? 

much  mystery.  Abhorrence  of  "public  do- 
ings "  in  "  changing  the  name  of  lover  for  hus- 
band "  was  certainly  superficially  justifiable  in 
the  circumstances.  A  gentleman  who  had 
brought  a  suit  against  her  in  1704  for  breach  of 
contract,  and  was  still  pestering  her  in  August, 
1707,  with  his  unpalatable  attentions,  was  quite 
capable  of  putting  awkward  obstacles  in  the 
way  of  that  other  ardent  wooer  from  Lord 
Sunderland's  office  in  Whitehall,  who,  in  order 
to  pay  his  court  to  "  the  beautifullest  object  in 
the  world,"  was  confessedly  neglecting  the 
"  Gazette  "  and  the  latest  news  from  Ostend. 
According  to  the  license  the  marriage  was  to 
have  taken  place  at  St.  Margaret's,  Westmin- 
ster ;  but  the  registers  of  that  church,  as  well  as 
those  of  St.  James's,  Piccadilly,  and  St.  Martin's- 
in-the-Fields,  have  been  fruitlessly  searched  for 
the  record,  and  it  is  clear  that,  for  some  days, 
the  ceremony  was  kept  a  secret,  pending  the 
arrival  from  Wales  of  Mrs.  Scurlock's  consent. 
It  probably  took  place  on  the  9th  of  September, 
1707,  the  day  after  the  license  was  granted.  In 
the  previous  month  of  August,  Steele  had  rented 
a  house,  now  no  longer  standing,  in  Bury  Street, 
close  to  the  turning  out  of  Jermyn  Street.  This 
was  a  quarter  of  the  town  described  by  contem- 
porary advertisements  as  in  close  proximity  "  to 


74  Miscellanies. 

St.  James's  Church,  Chapel,  Park,  Palace,  Cof- 
fee and  Chocolate  Houses"  —  in  other  words, 
it  was  in  the  very  heart  of  the  beau  monde  ;  and 
here  Steele,  moreover,  would  be  within  easy 
distance  of  the  Court,  and  the  Cockpit  at 
Whitehall.  He  appears  to  have  begun  his  estab- 
lishment upon  the  lavish  footing  of  a  gentleman 
whose  expectations  are  larger  than  his  means, 
and  whose  wife's  dignity  demands,  if  not  "  the 
gilt  coach  and  dappled  Flanders  mares "  of 
Pope's  Pamela,  at  least  a  chariot,  a  lady's-maid, 
and  an  adequate  equipment  of  cinnamon  satin. 
On  paper  his  yearly  income  from  all  sources. 
Mrs.  Scurlock's  allowance  not  included,  was 
about  ;£i2)O.  But  by  far  the  largest  portion  of 
this  was  derived  from  the  Barbados  property, 
which,  besides  being  encumbered  by  legacies, 
seems  to  have  made  irregular  returns.  His 
salary  as  Gazetteer  was  also  subject  to  "  deduc- 
tions," and  as  with  the  modest  pay  of  a  captain 
in  Lucas's  he  had  dabbled  in  alchemy,  he  was 
probably  considerably  in  debt.  The  prospect 
was  not  a  cheerful  one,  either  for  him  or  for 
"  Prue,"  as  he  soon  begins  to  call  his  more  cir- 
cumspect better-half,  and  the  signs  of  trouble 
are  speedily  present.  Always  irrepressibly  san- 
guine, and  generally  without  ready  money,  he  is 
constantly  turning  some  pecuniary  corner  or 


The  Latest  Life  of  Steele.  75 

other,  not  without  anticipations  and  borrowings 
that  bring  their  inevitable  train  of  actions  and 
bailiffs.  All  this  has  to  be  gently  tempered  to 
the  apprehensive  "  Prue,"  who,  to  her  other 
luxuries,  contrives  to  add  a  confidante,  described 
as  Mrs.  (probably  here  it  means  Miss)  Binns. 
Meanwhile  her  husband,  bustling  to  and  fro, 
now  detained  in  his  passage  by  a  friend  (and  a 
"pint  of  wine"),  —  now,  it  is  to  be  feared, 
attentively  "shadowed"  by  the  watchful 
"  shoulder-dabbers," —  scribbles  off,  from  re- 
mote "blind  taverns"  and  other  casual  coigns 
of  vantage,  a  string  of  notes  and  notelets  de- 
signed to  keep  his  "  Absolute  Governess  "  at 
Bury  Street  minutely  acquainted  with  his  doings. 
Through  all  of  these  the  "dusky  strand"  of  the 
"  West  Indian  business"  —  in  other  words,  the 
protracted  negotiation  for  the  sale  of  the  Barba- 
dos property  —  winds  languidly  and  inextricably. 
Steele's  letters  to  his  wife,  accessible  in  the 
reprints  by  Nichols  of  1787  and  1809,  are,  how- 
ever, too  well  known  to  need  description,  and 
although  Mr.  Aitken  has  collated  them  with  the 
originals,  he  does  not  profess  to  have  made  any 
material  addition  to  their  riches.  As  they  pro- 
gress, they  record  more  than  one  of  the  various 
attempts  at  advancement  with  which  their  writer, 
egged  on  by  his  ambition  and  his  embarrass- 


76  Miscellanies. 

ments,  is  perpetually  preoccupied.  To-day  it  is 
a  gentleman-ushership  that  seems  within  his 
reach,  to-morrow  he  is  hoping  to  be  Under- 
secretary, vice  Addison  promoted  to  Ireland. 
Then  the  strange  disquieting  figure  of  Swift  ap- 
pears upon  the  scene,  not,  as  it  seems,  to  exer- 
cise its  usual  power  of  fascination  over  "  Prue," 
by  whom — Swift  declares  later — Steele  is 
governed  "  most  abominably,  as  bad  as  Marl- 
borough."  With  April,  1709,  comes  the  estab- 
lishment of  the  Taller,  and  we  enter  upon 
thrice-gleaned  ground.  The  period  covered  by 
"Mr.  Bickerstaffs  Lucubrations"  and  their 
successor,  the  Spectator,  lighted  as  it  is  by  stray 
side-rays  from  the  wonderful  "Journal  to 
Stella,"  offers  few  opportunities  for  fresh  illumi- 
nation. Mr.  Aitken's  account  of  the  inception 
of  the  two  papers,  and  of  their  several  imitators, 
is  copious  and  careful,  but  beyond  printing  from 
the  Blenheim  MSS.  some  interesting  accounts 
of  Tonson,  bearing  upon  the  sale  of  the  collected 
editions,  and,  from  the  British  Museum,  an 
assignment  to  Buckley  the  bookseller  of  a  share 
in  the  Spectator,  he  adds  nothing  that  is  abso- 
lutely new  to  what  has  already  been  collected 
by  Drake,  Percy,  Chalmers,  Nichols,  and  other 
writers.  With  respect  to  the  unexplained  ces- 
sation of  the  Tatler,  he  apparently  inclines  to 


The  Latest  Life  of  Steele.  77 

the  view  that  it  was  in  some  sort  the  result  of 
an  understanding  with  Harley,  by  which  Steele, 
having  been  deprived  of  his  Gazetteership  as  a 
caution,  was  allowed  to  retain,  quamdiu  se  bene 
gesserit,  his  recently  acquired  appointment  as 
Commissioner  of  Stamps.  But  it  is  not  probable 
that  we  shall  ever  know  much  more  of  a  trans- 
action concerning  which  Addison  was  uncon- 
sulted,  and  Swift  uninformed.  With  all  his 
customary  openness,  Steele  could,  if  he  pleased, 
keep  his  own  counsel,  and  he  seems  to  have 
done  so  on  this  occasion. 

Nor  are  we  really  any  wiser  as  to  the  reasons 
for  the  termination  of  the  Spectator  in  December, 
1712,  except  that  we  know  it  to  have  been  pre- 
meditated, since  the  Guardian  was  projected 
before  the  Spectator  ceased  to  appear.  From 
the  Berkeley  letters  among  Lord  Egmont's 
MSS.,  we  learn  that  Steele  was  once  more 
dallying  with  his  first  love,  the  stage  ;  and  from 
the  same  source  that,  either  early  in  February  or 
late  in  January,  the  death  of  his  mother-in-law 
had  put  him  in  possession  of  ^oo  per  annum. 
To  this  improvement  in  his  affairs  is  doubtless 
traceable  that  increased  spirit  of  independence 
which  precipitated  what  all  lovers  of  letters 
must  regard  as  his  disastrous  plunge  into  politics. 
Whatever  the  origin  of  the  Guardian,  and  how- 


78  Miscellanies. 

ever  sincere  its  opening  protests  of  neutrality, 
the  situation  was  far  too  strained  for  one  who, 
having  a  journal  at  his  command,  had  been  from 
his  youth  a  partisan  of  the  Revolution,  and  had 
already  made  rash  entry  into  party  quarrels. 
Before  May,  1713,  he  was  involved  in  bitter  hos- 
tilities with  Swift,  arising  out  of  a  Tory  attack 
on  the  Nottinghams  for  their  desertion  to  the 
Whigs.  A  few  weeks  later  found  him  insisting 
upon  the  demolition,  under  the  Treaty  of  Utrecht, 
of  the  harbour  and  fortifications  of  Dunkirk, 
which  demolition,  it  was  shrewdly  suspected, 
the  Ministry  were  intending  to  forego.  In  June 
he  had  resigned  his  Commissionership  of  Stamps, 
and  in  August  he  was  elected  member  for  the 
borough  of  Stockbridge.  Almost  concurrently 
he  issued  a  pamphlet  entitled  "The  Importance 
of  Dunkirk  consider'd."  Swift,  henceforth 
hanging  always  upon  his  traces,  retorted  with 
one  of  his  cleverest  pamphlets,  "The  Impor- 
tance of  the  Guardian  considered,"  and  the 
"  underspur-leathers"  of  the  Tory  press  began 
also  to  ply  their  pens  against  Steele,  who  by  this 
time  had  dropped  the  Guardian  fora  professedly 
political  organ,  the  Englishman.  Shortly  after- 
wards he  issued  "  The  Crisis,"  a  pamphlet  on 
the  Hanoverian  succession,  which  Swift  followed 
by  his  masterly  "  Publick  Spirit  of  the  Whigs." 


The  Latest  Life  of  Steele.  79 

No  sooner  had  Steele  taken  his  seat  in  the 
House  in  February  than  he  found  that  in  the 
eyes  of  those  in  power  he  was  a  marked  man. 
He  was  at  once  impeached  for  seditious  utter- 
ances in  "  The  Crisis,"  and,  though  he  seems  to 
have  made  an  able  defence,  was  expelled.  Then, 
after  a  few  doubtful  months,  Queen  Anne  died, 
his  party  came  into  power,  and  his  troubles  as  a 
politician  were  at  an  end.  In  his  best  pamphlet, 
his  "  Apology  for  Himself  and  his  Writings,"  he 
has  given  an  account  of  this  part  of  his  career. 

That  career,  as  far  as  literature  is  concerned, 
may  be  said  to  close  with  the  publication  of 
the  "  Apology,"  in  October,  1714.  Not  many 
months  afterwards,  on  presenting  an  address,  he 
was  knighted  by  King  George.  During  the  rest 
of  his  life,  which  was  prolonged  to  September, 
1729,  when  he  died  at  Carmarthen,  he  continued 
to  publish  various  periodicals  and  tracts,  none 
of  which  is  of  great  importance.  In  December, 
1718,  Lady  Steele  died,  and  four  years  later 
her  husband  produced  a  fourth  comedy,  that 
"Conscious  Lovers"  which  honest  Parson 
Adams  declared  to  be  (in  parts)  "  almost  solemn 
enough  for  a  sermon,"  but  which  is  neverthe- 
less, perhaps  by  reason  of  Gibber's  collabora- 
tion, one  of  the  best  constructed  of  his  plays. 
Part  of  Mr.  Aitken's  second  volume  is  occu- 


8o  Miscellanies. 

pied  by  Steele's  connection,  as  patentee  and 
manager,  with  Drury  Lane  Theatre,  concern- 
ing which  he  has  brought  together  much  curious 
and  hitherto  unpublished  information.  Other 
points  upon  which  new  light  is  thrown  are 
the  publication  of  "  The  Ladies  Library,1'  the 
establishment  of  the  "  Censorium,"  Steele's 
application  for  the  Mastership  of  the  Charter- 
house, Mr.  John  Rollos  and  his  mechanical 
hoop-petticoat,  the  failure  of  Steele's  once  fa- 
mous contrivance,  the  Fish-Pool,  his  connection 
with  the  Dyers,  etc.  But  it  would  be  impos- 
sible to  schedule  in  detail  the  numerous  in- 
stances in  which  Mr.  Aitken  has  been  able 
either  to  supplement  the  existing  material  or  to 
supersede  it  by  new.  A  careful  and  exhaustive 
bibliography  is  not  the  least  of  his  achievements. 
As  regards  Steele's  character,  Mr.  Aitken's 
inquiries  further  enforce  the  conclusion  that 
in  any  estimate  of  it,  considerable  allowance 
must  be  made  for  the  influence  of  that  miserable 
and  malicious  contemporary  gossip,  of  which,  as 
Fielding  says,  the  "only  basis  is  lying."  For 
much  of  this,  Steele's  ill-starred  excursion  into 
faction  is  obviously  responsible.  "Scandal  be- 
tween Whig  and  Tory,"  said  the  ingenuous  and 
experienced  author  of  the  "  New  Atalantis," 
"  goes  for  nothing,"  and  apart  from  her  specific 


The  Latest  Life  of  Sleele.  81 

recantation  in  the  dedication  to  "  Lucius,"  this 
sentiment  alone  should  suffice  to  discredit  her, 
at  all  events  in  the  absence  of  anything  like 
corroborative  evidence.  The  attacks  of  Dennis 
and  the  rest  are  as  worthless.  We  know  that 
Steele  was  not  "descended  from  a  trooper's 
horse,"  and  we  know  that  he  was  not  "  born  at 
Carrickfergus  "  (whatever  social  disqualification 
that  particular  accident  may  entail).  Why 
should  we  listen  to  the  circulators  of  these  or 
other  stories  —  those  of  Savage,  for  example? 
With  respect  to  Swift,  the  most  dangerous  be- 
cause the  most  powerful  detractor,  it  is  clear, 
from  the  way  in  which  he  speaks  of  Steele  and 
Steele's  abilities  before  the  strife  of  party  had 
estranged  them,  that,  if  they  had  never  quarrelled, 
he  would  have  ranked  him  only  a  little  lower  than 
Addison.1  And  if  Steele  has  suffered  from  scan- 
dal and  misrepresentation,  he  has  also  suffered 
from  his  own  admissions.  The  perfect  frankness 
and  freedom  of  his  letters  has  been  accepted 
too  literally.  Charming  and  unique  as  they  are, 

1  Swift's  extraordinary  pertinacity  of  hatred  to  Steele 
cannot  wholly  be  explained  by  his  sense  of  Steele's  in- 
gratitude. Steele  had  wounded  him  hopelessly  in  his 
most  vulnerable  part — he  had  laughed  at  his  pretensions 
to  political  omnipotency,  and  he  had  (as  Swift  thought) 
also  challenged  his  Christianity. 
6 


82  Miscellanies. 

they  leave  upon  many,  who  do  not  sufficiently 
bear  in  mind  their  extremely  familiar  character, 
an  ill-defined  impression  that  he  was  over-uxorious, 
over-sentimental.  But  a  man  is  not  necessarily 
this  for  a  few  extravagant  billets-doux,  or  many 
irreproachable  persons  who  now,  in  the  time- 
honoured  words  of  Mr.  Micawber,  "walk  erect 
before  their  fellow-men,"  would  incur  the  like 
condemnation.  Again,  it  is,  to  all  appearance, 
chiefly  due  to  the  careless  candour  of  some  half- 
dozen  of  these  documents  that  Steele  has  been 
branded  as  a  drunkard.  The  fact  is  that,  in  an 
age  when  to  take  too  much  wine  was  no  dis- 
grace, he  was  neither  better  nor  worse  than  his 
contemporaries  ;  and  there  is  besides  definite 
evidence  that  he  was  easily  overcome  —  far  more 
easily  than  Addison.  As  regards  his  money 
difficulties,  they  cannot  be  denied.  But  they 
were  the  difficulties  of  improvidence  and  not  of 
profligacy,  of  a  man  who,  with  Fielding's  joy  of 
life  and  Goldsmith's  "  knack  of  hoping,"  always 
rated  an  uncertain  income  at  its  highest  and  not 
at  its  average  amount,  and  who,  moreover,  paid 
his  debts  before  he  died.  For  the  rest,  upon 
the  question  of  his  general  personality,  it  will 
suffice  to  cite  one  unimpeachable  witness,  whose 
testimony  has  only  of  late  years  come  to  light. 
Berkeley,  who  wrote  for  the  Guardian,  and 


The  Latest  Life  of  Steele.  83 

visited  Steele  much  at  Bloomsbury  (where  he 
saw  nothing  of  Savage's  bailiffs  in  livery),  speaks 
expressly,  in  a  letter  to  Sir  John  Perceval,  of  his 
love  and  consideration  for  his  wife,  of  the  gen- 
erosity and  benevolence  of  his  temper,  of  his 
cheerfulness,  his  wit,  and  his  good  sense.  He 
should  hold  it,  he  says,  a  sufficient  recompense 
for  writing  the  "Treatise  on  Human  Know- 
ledge "  that  it  gained  him  "some  share  in  the 
friendship  of  so  worthy  a  man."  The  praise 
of  Berkeley — Berkeley,  to  whom  Pope  gives 
"  every  virtue  under  heaven,"  and  who  is  cer- 
tainly one  of  the  noblest  figures  of  the  century 
—  outweighs  whole  cartloads  of  Grub-street 
scandal  and  skip-kennel  pamphleteers. 

With  Steele's  standing  as  a  man  of  letters  we 
are  on  surer  ground,  since  his  own  works  speak 
for  him  without  the  distortions  of  tradition.  To 
the  character  of  poet  he  made  no  pretence,  nor 
could  he,  although — witness  the  Horatian  lines 
to  Marlborough,  which  Mr.  Aitken  now  dates 
1709  —  he  possessed  the  eighteenth-century  fac- 
ulty of  easy  octosyllabics.  Of  his  plays  it  has 
been  said  that  they  resemble  essays  rather  than 
dramas,  a  judgment  which  sets  one  wondering 
what  would  have  been  the  critic's  opinion  if 
Steele  had  never  written  the  Spectator,  and 
the  Taller.  It  is  perhaps  more  to  the  point 


84  Miscellanies. 

that  their  perception  of  strongly  marked  humour- 
ous character  is  far  more  obvious  than  their 
stage-craft,  and  that  their  shortcomings  in  this 
latter  respect  are  heightened  by  Steele's  debata- 
ble endeavours  not  (as  Cowper  says)  "  to  let 
down  the  pulpit  to  the  level  of  the  stage,"  but 
to  lift  the  stage  to  a  level  with  the  pulpit.  As 
a  political  writer,  his  honesty  and  enthusiasm 
were  not  sufficient  to  secure  him  permanent 
success  in  a  line  where  they  are  not  always 
thrice-armed  that  have  their  quarrel  just ;  and 
it  is  no  discredit  to  him  that  he  was  unable  to 
contend  against  the  deadly  irony  of  Swift.  It  is 
as  an  essayist  that  he  will  be  best  remembered. 
In  the  past,  it  has  been  too  much  the  practice 
to  regard  him  as  the  humbler  associate  of  Addi- 
son.  We  now  know  that  he  deserves  a  much 
higher  place ;  that  Addison,  in  fact,  was  quite 
as  much  indebted  to  Steele's  inventive  gifts  as 
Steele  could  possibly  have  been  indebted  to 
Addison's  sublimating  spirit.  It  may  be  that  he 
was  a  more  negligent  writer  than  Addison  ;  it 
may  be  that  he  was  inferior  as  a  literary  artist ; 
but  the  genuineness  of  his  feelings  frequently 
carries  him  farther.  Not  a  few  of  his  lay  ser- 
mons on  anger,  pride,  flattery,  magnanimity,  and 
so  forth,  are  unrivalled  in  their  kind.  He  ral- 
lied the  follies  of  society  with  unfailing  tact  and 


The  Latest  Life  of  Steele.  85 

good-humour ;  he  rebuked  its  vices  with  ad- 
mirable courage  and  dignity  ;  and  he  wrote  of 
women  and  children  as,  in  his  day,  no  writer 
had  hitherto  dared  to  do.  As  the  first  painter 
of  domesticity,  the  modern  novel  owes  him 
much.  But  modern  journalism  owes  him  more, 
since  —  to  use  some  words  of  his  great  ad- 
versary—  he  "refined  it  first,  and  showed  its 
use." 

Mr.  Aitken's  book  has  been  described  in  the 
title  to  this  paper  as  the  "latest"  Life  of  Steele. 
It  will  probably  be  the  "last."  No  one,  at  all 
events,  is  likely  to  approach  the  subject  again 
with  the  same  indefatigable  energy  of  research. 
To  many  of  us,  indeed,  Biography,  conceived  in 
this  uncompromising  fashion,  would  be  a  thing 
impossible.  To  shrink  from  no  investigation, 
however  tedious,  to  take  nothing  at  second- 
hand, to  verify  everything,  to  cross-examine 
everything,  to  leave  no  smallest  stone  unturned 
in  the  establishment  of  the  most  infinitesimal 
fact  —  these  are  conditions  which  presuppose  a 
literary  constitution  of  iron.  It  is  but  just  to 
note  that  the  method  has  its  drawbacks.  So  nar- 
row an  attention  to  minutiae  tends  to  impair  the 
selective  power,  and  the  defect  of  Mr.  Aitken's 
work  is,  almost  of  necessity,  its  superabundance. 
It  will  be  said  that  his  determination  to  discover 


86  Miscellanies. 

has  sometimes  carried  him  too  far  afield  ;  that 
much  of  these  two  handsome  volumes  might 
with  advantage  have  been  committed  to  the  safe- 
keeping of  an  appendix  ;  that  the  mass  of  detail, 
in  short,  is  out  of  proportion  to  its  actual  rele- 
vance. To  this,  in  all  likelihood,  the  author 
would  answer  that  his  book  is  not  designed  (in 
Lander's  phrase)  to  lie  — 

"  With  summer  sweets,  with  albums  gaily  drest, 
Where  poodle  snifts  at  flower  between  the  leaves;" 

that  he  does  not  put  it  forward  as  a  study  or 
critical  monograph ;  but  that  it  is  a  leisurely 
and  conscientious  effort,  reproducing  much  out- 
of-the-way  information  which  is  the  lawful  prize 
of  his  individual  bow  and  spear ;  and  that, 
rather  than  lose  again  what  has  been  so  painfully 
acquired,  he  is  prepared  to  risk  the  charge  of 
surplusage,  content  if  his  labours  be  recognised 
as  the  fullest  and  most  trustworthy  existing  con- 
tribution towards  the  life  and  achievements  of 
a  distinguished  man  of  letters  who  died  nearly 
one  hundred  and  seventy  years  ago.  And  this 
recognition  his  labours  undoubtedly  deserve. 


THE   AUTHOR  OF   "MONSIEUR 
TONSON." 

"  "TV  TEVER  have  a  porch  to  your  paper." 
1\  Acting  upon  this  excellent  maxim  of 
the  late  Master  of  Balliol,  we  may  at  once  ex- 
plain that  "  Monsieur  Tonson  "  is  the  title  of  a 
long-popular  recitation.  It  recounts,  in  rhyme 
of  the  Wolcot  and  Colman  order,  how,  in  the 
heyday  of  hoaxes  and  practical  joking,  a  wag, 
called  King  in  the  verses,  persecutes  an  unhappy 
French  refugee  in  St.  Giles's  with  repeated 
nightly  inquiries  for  an  imaginary  "  Mr.  Thomp- 
son,1' until  at  length  his  maddened  victim  flies  the 
house.  And  here  comes  in  the  effective  point 
of  the  story.  After  a  protracted  absence  abroad, 
the  tormentor  returns  to  London,  when  the 
whim  seizes  him  to  knock  once  more  at  the  old 
door  with  the  old  question.  By  an  extraordinary 
coincidence  the  Frenchman  has  just  resumed 
residence  in  his  former  dwelling. 


88  Miscellanies. 

Without  one  thought  of  the  relentless  foe, 
Who,  fiend-like,  haunted  him  so  long  ago, 

Just  in  his  former  trim  he  now  appears  : 
The  waistcoat  and  the  nightcap  seemed  the  same, 
With  rushlight,  as  before,  he  creeping  came, 

And  KING'S  detested  voice  astonish'd  hears,  — 

the  result  being  that  he  takes  flight  again,  "  and 
ne'er  is  heard  of  more."  The  author  of  this  jeu 
cTesprit  was  John  Taylor,  the  oculist  and  jour- 
nalist ;  and  it  originated  in  a  current  anecdote, 
either  actually  founded  on  fact  or  invented  by  a 
Governor  of  Jamaica.  After  a  prosperous  career 
in  prose,  Taylor  versified  it  for  Fawcett,  the 
comedian,  who  was  giving  recitations  at  the 
Freemasons'  Tavern.  It  had  an  extraordinary 
vogue ;  was  turned  by  Moncrieff  into  a  farce 
(in  which  Gatti,  and  afterwards  Matthews,  took 
the  leading  part  of  Monsieur  Morbleu,  the 
Frenchman)  ;  was  illustrated  by  Robert  Cruik- 
shank,  and  still,  we  are  told,  makes  furtive 
appearance  in  popular  "  Reciters."  By  describ- 
ing himself  on  the  title-page  of  his  memoirs  as 
"  Author  of  '  Monsieur  Tonson,'  "  its  writer 
plainly  regarded  the  poem  as  his  passport  to 
fame ;  and  whether  one  agrees  with  him  or  not, 
it  may  safely  be  taken  as  a  pretext  for  some  ac- 
count of  the  gossiping  and  discursive  volumes 
which  contain  his  recollections. 


The  Author  of  "Monsieur  Tonson."     89 

John  Taylor's  grandfather,  also  John,  was  a 
person  of  considerable  importance  in  his  day, 
being  indeed  none  other  than  the  notorious 
oculist,  or  "  Ophthalmiater,"  known  as  the 
"  Chevalier  "  Taylor.  Irreverent  persons  seem 
to  have  hinted  that,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  this  new- 
fangled Ophthalmiater  meant  no  more  than  old 
Quack  "writ  large  ; "  and  one  William  Hogarth, 
generally  on  the  side  of  the  irreverent,  hitched 
the  Chevalier  into  a  well-known  satirical  etching 
which  collectors  entitle  indifferently  "  Consulta- 
tion of  Physicians"  or  "Company  of  Under- 
takers." Here  the  gifted  recipient  (as  per 
advertisement)  of  so  many  distinctions  "  Pon- 
tifical, Imperial,  and  Royal,"  appears  ignobly 
with  Mrs.  Sarah  Mapp,  the  Epsom  bone-setter, 
and  that  famous  Dr.  Joshua  Ward,  referred  to 
by  Fielding,  whose  pill  (like  a  much-vaunted 
nostrum  of  our  own  day)  had  the  property  of 
posting  at  once  to  the  part  affected.  Yet  the 
Chevalier,  despite  inordinate  vanity,  and  a  fond- 
ness for  fine  clothes  which  made  him  fair  game 
for  the  mocker,  was  undoubtedly  a  man  of  ability. 
"He  has  a  good  person,  is  a  natural  orator,  and 
has  a  facility  of  learning  foreign  languages"  — 
says  Dr.  King,  who  met  him  at  Tunbridge  ;  and 
apart  from  the  circumstance  that  he  had  been  a 
pupil  of  Cheselden  the  anatomist,  he  was  really 


90  Miscellanies. 

a  very  skilful  operator  for  cataract,  and  wrote  a 
long  list  of  works  or  pamphlets  on  the  eye.  He 
was  a  familiar  figure  in  the  different  Courts  of 
Europe  for  his  cures,  real  and  imaginary,  the 
story  of  which  he  relates  —  without  showing  any 
"  remarkable  diffidence  in  recording  his  own  tal- 
ents and  attainments,"  says  his  grandson  —  in 
three  volumes  of  Memoirs,1  having  a  longer  title- 
page  than  that  of  "  Pamela."  Judging  from  his 
own  account  (which  should  probably  be  taken 
with  the  fullest  allowance  of  cautionary  salt),  his 
experiences  must  have  been  peculiar,  and  his  visit- 
ing list  unusually  varied.  He  asserts,  without 
much  detail,  that  he  knew  Lord  Bath  and  Jack 
Sheppard  ;  Mary  Tofts,  the  Godalming  rabbit- 
breeder,  and  Sarah,  Duchess  of  Marlborough. 

1  "  The  History  of  the  Travels  and  Adventures  of  the 
Chevalier  John  Taylor,  Ophthalmiater  .  .  .  Author  of  45 
works  in  different  Languages  :  the  Produce  for  upwards 
of  Thirty  years,  of  the  greatest  Practice  in  the  Cure  of 
distempered  Eyes,  of  any  in  the  Age  we  live  [sic]  —  Who 
has  been  in  every  Court,  Kingdom,  Province,  State,  City, 
and  Town  of  the  least  Consideration  in  all  Europe,  with- 
out exception.  Written  by  Himself  .  .  .  Qui  Visum 
Vitam  Dat.  London  :  J.  Williams,  1761-2."  This  must 
not  be  confounded  with  the  "  Life  "  in  two  volumes  pub- 
lished by  Cooper  in  1761,  a  coarse  catchpenny  invention 
by  Lord  Chesterfield's  profligate  protege,  the  bricklayer 
poet,  Henry  Jones. 


The  Author  of  "Monsieur  Tonson."     91 

He  also  professed  acquaintance  with  Marshals 
Saxe  and  Keith  ;  with  Pollnitz  of  the  "  Virgin- 
ians ;  "  with  Theodore,  the  bankrupt  King  of 
Corsica  ;  with  Boerhaave,  Albinus,  Linnaeus, 
Pope,  Voltaire,  Metastasio,  La  Fontaine,  etc. 
(If  the  fabulist  be  intended,  there  is  clearly  some 
mistake,  since  La  Fontaine  departed  this  life 
about  eight  years  before  the  Chevalier  was  born.) 
He  was  a  witness,  he  says,  of  the  execution  of 
Counsellor  Christopher  Layer  for  high  treason, 
and  he  affirms  that  he  was  actually  present  in  the 
Old  Bailey  upon  that  memorable  occasion  when 
Blake  (alias  Blue-skin)  tried  to  cut  the  throat  of 
Jonathan  Wild.  Having  seen  many  men  and 
cities,  and  full  of  honours  —  chiefly  of  foreign 
manufacture  —  the  Chevalier  died  in  a  convent  at 
Prague  in  1780.  At  the  time  of  his  death,  it  may 
be  noted,  the  famous  Ophthalmiater  was  himself 
blind.  He  can  scarcely  be  said  to  have  wanted  a 
vales  sacer,  for  Churchill  mentions  him  in  "The 
Ghost:  "  — 

Behold  the  CHEVALIER  — 
As  well  prepar'd,  beyond  all  doubt, 
To  put  Eyes  in,  as  put  them  out. 

And  Walpole  gave  him  a  not  very  happy 
epigram  :  — 


92  Miscellanies. 

Why  Taylor  the  quack  calls  himself  Chevalier, 

'T  is  not  easy  a  reason  to  render ; 
Unless  blinding  eyes,  that  he  thinks  to  make  clear, 

Demonstrates  he 's  but  a  Pretender. 

His  only  son,  John  Taylor  the  Second,  was 
also  an  oculist,  but  not  of  equal  eminence,  al- 
though one  of  his  cures  —  that  of  a  boy  born 
blind  —  obtained  the  honours  of  a  pamphlet  by 
Oldys  the  antiquary,  and  a  portrait  by  Worlidge 
the  etcher.  At  the  Chevalier's  death  John  Tay- 
lor applied  for  the  post,  which  his  father  had 
held,  of  oculist  to  the  King,  but  the  appoint- 
ment was  given  to  the  Baron  de  Wenzel,  one  of 
the  Chevalier's  pupils,  who  had  been  fortunate 
enough  to  operate  successfully  on  the  old  Duke 
of  Bedford,  of  "  Junius"  notoriety.  To  John 
Taylor  the  Second  succeeded  John  Taylor  the 
Third,  the  "  Author  of  '  Monsieur  Tonson.'  " 
Beginning  life  as  an  oculist,  like  his  father  and 
grandfather,  he  achieved  considerable  reputation 
in  that  capacity,  and  by  good  luck  obtained  at 
Wenzel's  death  the  very  appointment  which  his 
father  had  failed  to  secure.  But  in  mid-career 
he  relinquished  his  profession  for  journalism. 
For  many  years  he  was  proprietor  and  editor  of 
the  Sun  newspaper,  and  in  1827  he  also  pub- 
lished a  couple  of  volumes  of  prologues,  epi- 
logues, sonnets,  and  occasional  verses.  His 


The  Author  of  "Monsieur  Tonson."     93 

chief  reputation,  however,  was  that  of  a  racon- 
teur. "  In  his  latter  days,"  says  the  Literary 
Gazette,  in  its  obituary  notice  of  May  19,  1832, 
he  '•  was,  perhaps,  as  entertaining  in  conversa- 
tion, with  anecdote,  playfulness,  and  satire,  as 
any  man  within  the  bills  of  mortality."  Many 
of  his  good  things  are  preserved  in  the  two  vol- 
umes of  "  Records  of  My  Life  "  which  appeared 
shortly  after  his  death,1  to  the  compilation  of 
which  he  was  impelled  by  the  perfidy  of  a  former 
partner  and  the  invitation  of  an  "  eminent  pub- 
lisher," presumably  Mr.  Edward  Bull,  of  Holies 
Street,  whose  imprint  the  volumes  bear.  His 
recollections  are  set  down  without  any  other 
method  than  a  certain  rough  grouping ;  they 
have  the  garrulity  and  the  repetitions  of  the 
advanced  age  at  which  they  were  penned  ;  but 
they  contain,  in  addition  to  a  good  deal  that  he 
had  heard  from  others,  much  that  had  come 
within  his  own  experiences.  As  he  professes 
strict  veracity,  it  is  from  the  latter  class  that  we 
shall  chiefly  make  selection,  beginning  as  in  duty 
bound,  with  the  anecdotes  of  literary  men. 

1  "  Records  of  my  Life ;  by  the  late  John  Taylor, 
Esquire,  Author  of  '  Monsieur  Tonson.'  "  2  vols.  Lon- 
don :  Bull,  1832.  The  copy  belonging  to  the  present 
writer  contains,  besides  inserted  photographs,  "  Addenda  " 
by  John  Stirling  Taylor,  the  author's  son. 


94  Miscellanies. 

Concerning  Johnson  and  Goldsmith  he  has 
not  much  to  say  beyond  the  fact  that,  as  a  boy, 
he  had  once  delivered  a  letter  for  the  latter  at 
the  Temple,  but  without  seeing  him.  It  is,  how- 
ever, to  the  "Author  of  '  Monsieur  Tonson" 
that  we  owe  the  historic  episode  of  the  borrowed 
guinea  slipped  under  the  door,  which  recurs  so 
prominently  in  all  Goldsmith's  biographies ;  while 
he  tells  one  anecdote  of  Johnson  which,  as  far  as 
we  can  discover,  has  escaped  Dr.  Birkbeck  Hill. 
According  to  Dr.  Messenger  Monsey,  physician 
of  Chelsea  Hospital  —  a  rough,  Abernethy  sort 
of  man,  whom  his  admirers  compared  with  Swift 
—  upon  one  occasion,  when  the  age  of  George 
III.  was  under  discussion,  Johnson  burst  in 
with  a  "  Pooh  !  what  does  it  signify  when  such 
an  animal  was  born,  or  whether  he  had  ever 
been  born  at  all?" — an  ultra-Jacobital  utter- 
ance which  the  Whig  narrator  did  not  neglect  to 
accentuate  by  reminding  his  hearers  that  to  this 
very  "  usurper"  Johnson  subsequently  owed  his 
pension.  But  as  Monsey  did  not  like  the  Doc- 
tor, and  Taylor  calls  him  a  "  literary  hippopota- 
mus," the  incident  is  probably  exaggerated. 
Then  there  is  a  story  of  Dr.  Parr,  in  which  is 
concerned  another  of  the  Johnson  circle,  Ed- 
mund Burke.  During  the  Hastings  trial  Parr 
was  effusive  (Taylor  says  "diffusive  ")  about  the 


The  Author  of  ''Monsieur  Tonson."     95 

speeches  of  Sheridan  and  Fox,  but  silent  as  to 
Burke's,  a  circumstance  which  led  that  distin- 
guished orator  to  suggest  interrogatively  that  he 
presumed  Parr  found  it  faultless.  "  Not  so, 
Edmund,"  was  the  reply,  in  Parr's  best  John- 
sonese ;  "  your  speech  was  oppressed  by  epithet, 
dislocated  by  parenthesis,  and  debilitated  by 
amplification,"  —  a  knock-me-down  answer  to 
which  "  Edmund  "  made  no  recorded  re- 
joinder. There  is  a  touch  of  the  lexicographic 
manner  in  another  anecdote,  this  time  of  Hugh 
Kelly,  the  stay-maker  turned  dramatist  and  bar- 
rister, who  was  so  proud  of  his  silver  that  he 
kept  even  his  spurs  upon  the  sideboard.  Ex- 
amining a  lady  at  the  trial  of  George  Barring- 
ton,  the  pick-pocket,  Kelly  inquired  elaborately, 
"  Pray,  madam,  how  could  you,  in  the  immensity 
of  the  crowd,  determine  the  identity  of  the  man  ? " 
As  he  found  that  his  question  was  wholly  unin- 
telligible to  the  witness,  he  reduced  it  to  "  How 
do  you  know  he  was  the  man?"  "Because," 
came  the  prompt  reply,  "  I  caught  his  hand  in  my 
pocket."  Taylor  apparently  knew  both  the  Bos- 
wells,  father  and  son,  and,  indeed,  playfully  claims 
part-authorship  in  the  famous  "  Life"  upon  the 
ground  that  he  had  suggested  the  substitution 
of  "  comprehending  "  for  "containing"  in  the 
title-page;  and  certainly  —  if  that  be  proof  — 


96  Miscellanies. 

"  comprehending  "  is  there,  and  "  containing  "  is 
not.1  He  had  also  relations  with  Wilkes,  whom 
he  praises  for  his  wit  and  learning.  For  his 
learning  we  have  the  evidence  of  his  "Catullus/1 
but  his  wit  seems,  like  much  wit  of  his  day,  to 
have  been  largely  based  upon  bad  manners. 
Once  a  certain  over-goaded  Sir  Watkin  Lewes 
said  angrily  to  him,  "  I  '11  be  your  butt  no 
longer."  Wilkes  at  once  mercilessly  retorted, 
"  With  all  my  heart.  I  never  like  an  empty 
one." 

Wolcot  and  Caleb  Whitefoord  of  the  "  Cross 
Readings,"  Richard  Owen  Cambridge  and  Rich- 
ard Cumberland  —  all  figure  in  the  "  Records." 
Taylor  thinks  that  the  famous  Whitefoord  addi- 
tion to  "  Retaliation  "  was  really  by  Goldsmith 
—  a  supposition  which  is  not  shared  by  modern 
Goldsmith  critics.  Of  Wolcot  there  is  a  lengthy 
account,  the  most  striking  part  of  which  refers 
to  his  last  hours.  Taylor  asked  him,  on  his 
death-bed,  whether  anything  could  be  done  for 
him.  "  His  answer,  delivered  in  a  deep  and 
strong  tone,  was,  '  Bring  back  my  youth,'  "  after 
which  futile  request  he  fell  into  the  sleep  in 
which  he  died.  Cambridge  Taylor  seems  to 
have  known  but  slightly,  and  apart  from  a  long 

1  For  exact  title,  see  post,  "  Boswell's  Predecessors  and 
Editors." 


The  Author  of  "  Monsieur  Tonson."     97 

story,  for  the  authenticity  of  which  he  does  not 
vouch,  has  nothing  menjprable  to  say  of  him, 
except  that  he  declared  he  had  written  his 
"  Scribleriad  "  while  under  the  hands  of  his 
hairdresser, — a  piece  of  fine-gentleman  affecta- 
tion which  recalls  Moliere's  poetaster.  But 
Taylor  tells  a  story  of  Cumberland  which  is  at 
least  well  invented.  Once  —  so  it  runs  —  Cum- 
berland stumbled  on  entering  a  box  at  Drury 
Lane  Theatre,  and  Sheridan  sprang  to  his  assist- 
ance. "  Ah,  sir!  "  said  the  writer  of  the  "West 
Indian,"  "  you  are  the  only  man  to  assist  a  fall- 
ing author."  "  Rising,  you  mean,"  returned 
Sheridan,  thus,  either  by  malice  or  misadventure, 
employing  almost  the  exact  words  which,  in  the 
Critic,  he  had  put  into  the  mouth  of  "  Sir  Fret- 
ful Plagiary,"  —  a  character  admittedly  modelled 
upon  Cumberland  himself.  Sheridan,  too,  sup- 
plies more  than  one  page  of  these  recollections, 
and  their  writer  professes  to  have  been  present 
when  he  (Sheridan)  spoke  as  follows  concerning 
a  pamphleteer  who  had  written  against  him  : 

"I  suppose  that  Mr. thinks   I  am  angry 

with  him,  but  he  is  mistaken,  for  I  never  har- 
bour resentment.  If  his  punishment  depended 
on  me,  I  would  show  him  that  the  dignity  of 
my  mind  was  superior  to  all  vindictive  feelings. 
Far  should  I  be  from  wishing  to  inflict  a  capital 
7 


98  Miscellanies. 

punishment  upon  him,  grounded  on  his  attack 
upon  me  ;  but  yet  on  account  of  his  general 
character  and  conduct,  and  as  a  warning  to 
others,  I  would  merely  order  him  to  be  publicly 
whipped  three  times,  to  be  placed  in  the  pillory 
four  times,  to  be  confined  in  prison  seven  years, 
and  then,  as  he  would  enjoy  freedom  the  more 
after  so  long  a  confinement,  I  would  have  him 
transported  for  life." 

At  the  date  of  the  above  deliverance,  the 
scene  of  which  was  a  tavern  in  Portugal  Street, 
—  perhaps  the  now  vanished  Grange  public 
house,  —  Sheridan  was  lessee  of  Drury  Lane 
Theatre.  In  later  years  Taylor  was  to  become 
acquainted  with  another  Drury  Lane  magnate, 
Lord  Byron,  with  whom  he  corresponded  and 
exchanged  poems.  Concerning  Lady  Byron  he 
reports  that  Mrs.  Siddons,  whom  he  regarded 
as  an  unimpeachable  authority,  assured  him  that 
if  she  had  no  other  reason  to  admire  his  Lord- 
ship's judgment  and  taste,  she  should  be  fully 
convinced  of  both  by  his  choice  of  a  wife,  —  a 
sentiment  which  should  certainly  be  set  down  to 
the  credit  of  a  lady  who  is  by  no  means  over- 
praised. Among  the  Portugal  Street  roisterers 
was  Richard  Wilson,  the  painter.  According  to 
Taylor  he  must  have  been  vintner  as  well,  since 
most  of  the  wine  came  from  his  cellar  in  Lin- 


The  Author  of  "Monsieur  Tonson."1     99 

coin's    Inn    Fields  (Great   Queen  Street),  the 
company  having  condemned  the  tavern  bever- 
ages.    Apart   from  the  fact  that  Wilson's  "  fa- 
vourite fluid,"  like  Churchill's,  was  porter,  this 
particular  is  more  out  of  keeping  with  his  tra- 
ditional lack  of  pence  than  another,  also  related 
by  Taylor,  in   which  he    says   that,  upon  one 
occasion,  having  procured  Wilson  a  commission, 
he  was  obliged  to  lend  him  the  money  to  buy 
brushes   and    canvas.      With    artists,    however. 
Taylor's  acquaintance  was  not  large.      He  knew 
Peters  the  academician,   afterwards  the  Rev. ; 
and  he  knew  Ozias   Humphry  the  miniaturist, 
who  in  his  old  age  became  totally  blind.     With 
West  and  his  rival  Opie  (who,  like  Wilson,  lived 
in  Queen  Street)  he  was  apparently  on  familiar 
terms,  and  he  was  often  the  guest  of  the  former  at 
the  dinners  which  the  Royal  Academy  of  that  day 
were  accustomed  to  have  on  the  anniversary  of 
Queen  Charlotte's  birthday.    Of  West  he  speaks 
warmly ;  does  not  mention  his  vanity,  and  attrib- 
utes much  of  his   baiting  by   Peter   Pindar  to 
that  satirist's    partiality  for    Opie.     Fuseli,  an- 
other    resident    in    Great    Queen   Street,    and 
Northcote,    also   flit    through    the   record  ;  and 
there    is  reference  to  a   supper  at  Reynolds's, 
where    it   was   idly   debated   whether  Johnson 
would  have    written   the    "  Reflections  on   the 


ioo  Miscellanies. 

French  Revolution "  better  than  Burke,  and 
where  —  on  the  topic  De  morluis — Reynolds 
propounded  the  practical  dictum  that  "  the  dead 
were  nothing,  and  the  living  everything,  "  —  a 
sentiment  which  shows  him  to  have  been  in 
agreement  with  the  On  doit  des  dgards  aux 
vivants  of  Voltaire.  But,  on  the  whole,  the  an- 
nalist's memories  of  artists  are  of  meagre  inter- 
est, and  the  only  compact  anecdote  related  of  a 
member  of  the  profession  refers  to  the  archi- 
tect known  popularly  as  "  Capability"  Brown. 
Once  when  Lord  Chatham,  disabled  by  the  gout, 
was  hobbling  painfully  down  the  stairs  of  St. 
James's  Palace,  Brown  had  the  good  fortune  to 
assist  him  to  his  carriage.  Lord  Chatham 
thanked  him,  adding  pleasantly,  "  Now,  sir,  go 
and  adorn  your  country."  To  which  Brown 
the  capable  retorted  neatly,  "  Go  you,  my  Lord, 
and  save  it." 

Of  anecdotes  of  actors  and  actresses  the 
Author  of  "Monsieur  Tonson  "  has  no  lack. 
As  already  stated,  he  was  much  in  request  for 
prologues  and  epilogues ;  he  was  an  active  and 
intelligent  dramatic  critic,  and  he  was,  more- 
over, intimate  with  most  of  the  leading  players 
of  his  day.  To  make  any  adequate  summary  of 
so  large  a  body  of  theatrical  gossip  would  be 
difficult ;  but  a  few  stories  may  be  selected  con- 


The  Author  of  "Monsieur  Tonson."    101 

cerning  some  of  the  older  men.  Of  Garrick, 
whom  Taylor's  father  had  seen  when  he  first 
came  out  at  Goodman's  Fields,  and  regarded  as 
the  Shakespeare  of  actors,  he  tells  a  number  of 
stories  which,  unfamiliar  when  the  "  Records" 
were  published,  are  now  fairly  well-known. 
Taylor  was,  however,  the  first,  we  believe,  to 
record  that  effective  anecdote  of  Mrs.  Clive, 
who,  watching  Garrick  from  behind  the  scenes, 
between  smiles  and  tears,  burst  at  last  into  em- 
phatic and  audible  expression  of  her  belief  that 
he  could  "act  a  gridiron;1'  and  Taylor  also 
says  that  once,  when  his  father  was  performing 
an  operation  for  cataract,  Garrick,  who  was 
present,  so  enthralled  the  nervous  patient  by 
his  humour,  that  he  forgot  both  his  fears  and 
his  pain.  Of  Garrick's  Lady  Macbeth,  Mrs. 
Pritchard,  Taylor,  deriving  his  information  from 
his  father,  speaks  highly,  and  considers  that 
Johnson  degraded  her  memory  by  describing 
her  as  "  an  ignorant  woman,  who  talked  of  her 
gownd."  (Mrs.  Pritchard  had  acted  the  hero- 
ine in  the  great  man's  Irene,  and  it  is  possible 
that  he  was  prejudiced.)  To  Macklin,  another 
celebrated  Macbeth, — being,  indeed,  the  first 
who  performed  that  part  in  the  old  Scottish  garb, 
—  Taylor  makes  frequent  reference.  He  saw 
him  in  lago,  in  Sir  Paul  Pliant  of  the  Double 


1 02  Miscellanies. 

Dealer,  and  in  other  characters  ;  but  held  that 
he  was  "too  theoretical  for  nature.  He  had 
three  pauses  in  his  acting  —  the  first,  moderate  ; 
the  second,  twice  as  long;  but  his  last,  or 
'  grand  pause,'  as  he  styled  it,  was  so  long  that 
the  prompter  on  one  occasion,  thinking  his 
memory  failed,  repeated  the  cue  .  .  .  several 
times,  and  at  last  so  loud  as  to  be  heard  by  the 
audience."  Whereupon  Macklin  in  a  passion 
rushed  from  the  stage  and  knocked  him  down, 
exclaiming,  "  The  fellow  interrupted  me  in  my 
grand  pause  !  "  Quin,  Macklin's  rival,  was  also 
given  to  inordinate  pauses,  and  once,  while  act- 
ing Horatio  in  Rowe's  "  Fair  Penitent  "  (the 
play  in  which  George  Primrose  of  Wakefield 
was  to  have  made  his  d£but),  he  delayed  so  long 
to  reply  to  the  challenge  of  Lothario  that  a  man 
in  the  gallery  bawled  out,  "  Why  don't  you  give 
the  gentleman  an  answer,  whether  you  will  or 
no?"  Taylor  cites  a  good  many  instances  of 
Quin's  gourmandise,  and  of  his  ready,  but  rather 
full-flavoured  wit.  He  is  perhaps  best  when  on 
his  dignity.  Once  at  Allen's  of  Prior  Park 
(Fielding's  "  Allworthy  "),  the  imperious  War- 
burton  attempted  to  degrade  the  guest  into  the 
actor  by  insidiously  pressing  Quin  to  recite 
something.  Quin  accordingly  spoke  a  speech 
from  Otway's  "  Venice  Preserved  "  which  con- 
tained the  lines, — 


The  Author  of  "Monsieur  Tonson."    103 

"  Honest  men 

Are  the  soft  easy  cushions  on  which  knaves 
Repose  and  fatten,  "  — 

delivering  them  with  so  unmistakable  an  appli- 
cation to  Allen  and  Warburton  respectively  that 
he  was  never  again  troubled  by  the  divine  for  a 
specimen  of  his  declamatory  powers.  Another 
story  told  by  Taylor  of  Quin  may  be  quoted, 
because  it  introduces  Mrs.  Clive.  She  had  in- 
vited Quin  to  stay  at  Cliveden  (Little  Straw- 
berry), of  which  the  appointments  were  on  as 
minute  a  scale  as  those  of  Petit-Trianon.  When 
he  had  inspected  the  garden,  she  asked  him  if 
he  had  noticed  a  tiny  piece  of  water  which  she 
called  her  pond.  "  Yes,  Kate,"  he  replied,  "  I 
have  seen  your  basin,  but  did  not  see  a  wash- 
ball."  Taylor  seems  surprised  that  Walpole 
should  have  been  so  much  attracted  to  Mrs. 
Clive,  whose  personal  charms  were  small,  and 
whose  manners,  he  alleges,  were  rough  and  vul- 
gar. He  quotes,  with  apparent  approval,  some 
unpublished  lines  by  Peter  Pindar,  criticis- 
ing the  epitaph  in  which  Walpole  declared  that 
Comedy  had  died  with  his  friend  :  — 

"  Horace,  of  Strawberry  Hill  I  mean,  not  Rome, 
Lo  !  all  thy  geese  are  swans,  I  do  presume ; 
Truth  and  thy  verses  seem  not  to  agree ; 


104  Miscellanies. 

Know  Comedy  is  hearty,  all  alive ; 
The  Comic  Muse  no  more  expired  with  Clive 
Than  dame  Humility  will  die  with  thee." 

But  one  need  no  more  swear  to  the  truth  of 
an  epitaph  than  of  a  song.  Catharine  Clive  had 
both  humour  and  good-humour ;  her  indefati- 
gable needle  was  continually  employed  in  the 
decoration  of  Walpole's  Gothic  museum,  and  it 
may  be  concluded  that  he  knew  perfectly  what 
he  was  about.  As  a  near  neighbour,  a  blue 
stocking  might  have  been  wearisome,  a  beauty 
dangerous,  and  she  was  probably  of  far  more 
use  to  him  than  either. 

Except  for  the  "gridiron"  anecdote,  how- 
ever, Mrs.  Clive  does  not  play  any  material  part 
in  Taylor's  chronicle.  With  a  later  luminary, 
Miss  Farren,  he  was  not  actually  acquainted, 
although  he  had  met  her  once  with  Lord  Derby 
(whom  she  ultimately  married),  and  had  admired 
her  genuine  sensibility  in  Miss  Lee's  "  Chapter 
of  Accidents."  But  he  seems  to  have  been  on 
intimate  terms  with  Mrs.  Abington,  both  in  her 
prime  and  also  in  her  decline,  for  he  was  pres- 
ent when  she  degraded  herself  by  acting  Scrub 
in  the  "  Beaux'  Stratagem  ;  " *  and  he  had  dined 
with  her  at  Mrs.  Jordan's,  when  she  talked 

1  There  is  a  caricature  of  Mrs.  Abington  in  this  part 
by  James  Sayer. 


The  Author  of  "Monsieur  Tonson."    105 

unceasingly  and  enthusiastically  of  Garrick,  —  a 
circumstance  which,  considering  the  trouble  she 
had  given  him  in  his  lifetime,  may  perhaps  be 
regarded  in  the  light  of  an  expiatory  exercise. 
Taylor  also  knew  Mrs.  Siddons,  of  whom  he 
speaks  warmly,  saying  that  he  had  been  inti- 
mate with  her  for  years,  and  had  "  many  of  her 
letters,  with  which  even  her  request  would  not 
induce  him  to  part."  He  was,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  connected  with  the  Kemble  family  by  mar- 
riage, his  first  wife,  Mrs.  Duill,  having  been  a 
Miss  Satchell,  whose  sister  had  married  Stephen 
Kemble,  a  huge  Trulliber  of  a  man  who  could 
act  Falstaff  without  stuffing,  and  had  gone 
through  all  the  experiences  of  a  strolling  player, 
even  to  lunching  in  a  Yorkshire  turnip-field.1 
Of  John  Kemble,  and  Charles  Kemble  and  his 
wife  there  is  much  in  the  "  Records,"  but  most 
of  it  has  grown  familiar  by  repetition.  There 
is  also  much  of  other  actors  and  actresses,  as 
might  be  expected  from  one  who  had  seen 
Doddas  Sir  Andrew  Aguecheek,  Lewis  as  Mer- 
cutio,  "  Gentleman  "  Smith  as  Charles  in  the 
"School  for  Scandal,"  and  Palmer — Lamb's 

1  Stephen  George  Kemble  died  in  June,  1822.  While 
manager  of  the  Newcastle  Theatre,  he  was  on  intimate 
terms  with  Thomas  Bewick,  who  engraved  a  portrait  of 
him  as  Falstaff  for  a  benefit  ticket. 


106  Miscellanies. 

Jack  Palmer  —  as  Sneer  in  the  "  Critic."  Tay- 
lor's portrait,  in  the  poem  called  "  The  Stage," 
of  the  last-named  performer  may  serve  as  an 
example  of  its  writer's  powers  as  a  rival  of 
Lloyd  and  Churchill  :  — 

"  Where  travell'd  fops,  too  nice  for  nature  grown, 
Are  sway'd  by  affectation's  whims  alone ; 
Where  the  sly  knave,  usurping  honour's  guise, 
By  secret  villainy  attempts  to  rise ; 
Or  where  the  footman,  negligently  gay, 
His  master's  modish  airs  would  fain  display ; 
But  chiefly  where  the  rake,  in  higher  life, 
Cajoles  the  husband  to  seduce  the  wife, 
And,  fraught  with  art,  but  plausible  to  sight, 
The  libertine  and  hypocrite  unite  — 
PALMER  from  life  the  faithful  portrait  draws, 
And  calls  unrivall'd  for  our  warm  applause." 

In  the  foregoing  plunges  into  the  Taylorian 
bran-pie,  we  have,  as  promised  at  the  outset, 
depended  rather  upon  the  writer's  personal 
experiences  than  upon  his  miscellaneous  anec- 
dotes. But  we  have  by  no  means  exhausted 
the  personal  experiences.  Not  to  mention  polit- 
ical magnates  like  Lord  Chatham  and  Lord 
Chesterfield,  whom  we  have  almost  entirely 
neglected,  there  are  many  references  to  char- 
acters difficult  to  classify,  but  no  less  diverting 
to  recall.  As  a  boy,  Taylor  had  seen  Coan,  the 
Norfolk  dwarf  of  Churchill's  Rosciad 


The  Author  of  "Monsieur  Tonson"    107 

("  Whilst  to  six  feet  the  vig'rous  stripling  grown, 
Declares  that  GARRICK  is  another  COAN  "  ), 

then  lodging  at  a  tavern  in  the  Five  Fields  (now 
Eaton  Square)  kept  by  one  of  the  Pinchbecks 
who  invented  the  metal  of  that  name  ;  and  he 
remembered  the  boxer  Buckhorse,  a  debased 
specimen  of  humanity,  whose  humour  consisted 
in  permitting  the  Eton  and  Westminster  boys 
to  punch  his  battered  features  at  the  modest 
rate  of  a  shilling  the  blow.1  He  had  also 
visited  the  famous  Mrs.  Teresa  Cornelys,  when 
that  favourite  of  the  Nobility  and  Gentry  had 
fallen  upon  evil  days,  and  was  subsisting  pre- 
cariously as  a  purveyor  of  asses'  milk  at  Knights- 
bridge  ;  he  had  known  intimately  a  certain  Mr. 
Donaldson,  who,  like  Horace  Walpole,  had  gone 
in  danger  of  his  life  from  the  "  gentleman  high- 
wayman," James  Maclean  ;  and  at  Angelo's  in 
Carlisle  Street,  Soho,  he  had  frequently  met  the 
Chevalier  D'Eon  in  his  woman's  dress,  but  old, 
and  equally  decayed  in  manners  and  means.  It 
is  singular  that  the  Author  of  "  Monsieur  Ton- 
son,"  with  all  his  dramatic  proclivities,  should 

1  Buckhorse  can  hardly  have  been  familiar  with  Roman 
law.  But  twenty-five  pieces  of  copper  (about  the  value 
of  a  shilling)  was  the  legal  tender,  or  solatium,  for  a  blow 
on  the  face  (cf.  the  story  of  Veratius  in  Gibbon's  forty- 
fourth  chapter). 


io8  Miscellanies. 

never  have  attempted  a  play.  As  far  as  can  be 
ascertained,  however,  his  sole  contribution  to 
stage  literature,  prologues  and  epilogues  ex- 
cepted,  was  the  lines  for  the  rhyming  Butler  in 
Mrs.  Inchbald's  "  Lovers'  Vows,"  that  version 
of  Kotzebue's  "Das  Kind  der  Liebe  "  which 
figures  so  conspicuously  in  Miss  Austen's 
"Mansfield  Park."  "Lovers'  Vows"  would 
appear  to  be  fertile  in  suggestion,  for  it  was  in 
playing  this  piece  that  Charles  Kean  fell  in  love 
with  his  future  wife,  Miss  Ellen  Tree,  sister  of 
the  musical  Maria  (Mrs.  Bradshaw),  who  lives 
for  ever  in  Henry  LuttrelPs  happy  epigram  :  — 

"  On  this  Tree  when  a  nightingale  settles  and  sings, 
The  Tree  will  return  her  as  good  as  she  brings." 


BOSWELL'S    PREDECESSORS   AND 
EDITORS. 

V\7 RITING  to  Pope  in  July,  1728,  concern- 
»  V  ing  the  annotation  of  the  Dunciad,  Swift 
comments  upon  the  prompt  oblivion  which 
overtakes  the  minor  details  of  contemporary 
history.  "  Twenty  miles  from  London  nobody 
understands  hints,  initial  letters,  or  town  facts 
and  passages  ;  and  in  a  few  years  not  even  those 
who  live  in  London."  A  somewhat  similar 
opinion  was  expressed  by  Johnson.  "  In  sixty 
or  seventy  years,  or  less,"  he  said,  "all  works 
which  describe  manners  require  notes."  His 
own  biography  is  a  striking  case  in  point. 
Almost  from  the  beginning  the  editorial  pen 
was  freely  exercised  upon  it,  and  long  before 
the  lesser  term  he  mentions,  it  was  already  —  to 
use  an  expressive  phrase  of  Beaumarchais  — 
"  rongde  d'extraits  et  couverte  de  critiques."  With 
Mr.  Croker's  edition  of  1851  it  might  have 
been  thought  that  the  endurable  limits  of  illus- 
tration and  interpretation  had  been  reached,  and 
for  some  time,  indeed,  that  opinion  seems  to 


no  Miscellanies. 

have  obtained.  But  within  a  comparatively 
brief  period  three  other  editions  of  importance 
have  made  their  appearance,  each  of  which  has 
its  specific  merits,  while  four  and  twenty  years 
ago  was  published  another  (reissued  in  1888), 
which  had,  at  least,  the  merit  of  an  excellent 
plan.  Boswell's  book  itself  may  now,  in  Par- 
liamentary language,  be  taken  for  "  read."  As 
Johnson  said  of  Goldsmith's  Traveller,  "  its 
merit  is  established,  and  individual  praise  or 
censure  can  neither  augment  nor  diminish  it." 
But  the  publication,  in  Colonel  Grant's  excel- 
lent brief  memoir,  of  the  first  systematic  bibliog- 
raphy of  Johnson's  works,  coupled  with  the 
almost  simultaneous  issue  by  Mr.  H.  R.  Tedder, 
the  able  and  accomplished  librarian  to  the 
Athenaeum  Club,  of  a  bibliography  of  Boswell's 
masterpiece,  affords  a  sufficient  pretext  for  some 
review  of  Boswell's  editors  and  predecessors. 

Johnson  died  on  the  evening  of  Monday, 
December  13,  1784.  According  to  a  letter 
dated  May  $,  1785,  from  Michael  Lort  to 
Bishop  Percy,  printed  in  Nichols'  "  Literary 
Illustrations,"  the  first  Life  appeared  on  the  day 
following  the  death.  But  this  is  a  manifest 
mistake,  as  reference  to  contemporary  news- 
papers, or  even  to  the  pamphlet  itself,  should 
have  sufficed  to  show.  At  p.  120  is  an  account 


BosweWs  Predecessors  and  Editors,     in 

of  Johnson's  funeral,  which  did  not  take  place 
until  Monday,  December  20.  Moreover,  the 
portrait  by  T.  Trotter,  for  which  Johnson  is 
said  to  have  sat  "  some  time  since,"  is  dated 
the  i6th,  and  in  an  article  in  the  Gentleman's 
Magazine  for  December  it  is  expressly  stated 
that  the  book  "was  announced  before  the 
Doctor  had  been  two  days  dead,"  and  appeared 
on  the  ninth  morning  after  his  death.  It  may 
even  be  doubtful  if  this  is  strictly  accurate,  as 
the  first  notification  of  the  pamphlet  in  the  Pub- 
lic Advertiser  appears  on  Thursday,  the  2jrd, 
and  promises  its  publication  that  week.  Its 
title  is  "The  Life  of  Samuel  Johnson,  LL.D., 
with  Occasional  Remarks  on  his  Writings,  an 
Authentic  Copy  of  his  Will,  and  a  Catalogue 
of  his  Works,  &c.,"  1785.  It  is  an  octavo  of  iv- 
144  pages,  and  its  publisher  was  the  G.  Kears- 
ley,  of  46  Fleet  Street,  who  issued  so  many  of 
Goldsmith's  works.  Its  author,  too,  is  sup- 
posed to  have  been  the  William  Cook  who 
subsequently  wrote  recollections  of  Goldsmith 
in  the  European  Magazine  for  1793.  In  Kears- 
ley's  advertisement  great  pains  are  taken  to 
avert  the  possible  charge  of  catchpenny  haste, 
by  the  statement  that  the  book  had  been  drawn 
up  for  some  time,  but  had  been  withheld  from 
motives  of  delicacy.  This  anticipatory  defence 


112  Miscellanies. 

is,  however,  somewhat  neutralized  by  a  com- 
munication in  the  Gentleman's  Magazine  for 
December,  in  which  certain  of  its  errors  are 
excused  upon  the  ground  of  "  hurry."  It 
professes,  nevertheless,  to  be  "  a  sketch,  warm 
from  the  life,"  and,  although  speedily  superseded 
by  more  leisurely  efforts,  is  certainly  not  with- 
out interest  as  the  earliest  of  its  kind,  even  if 
it  be  not  quite  so  early  as  it  has  hitherto  been 
affirmed  to  be. 

Cook's  Life  was  followed  by  articles  in  the 
European  and  the  Gentleman  s  Magazines  for 
December,  which,  according  to  the  fashion  of 
those  days,  appeared  at  the  end  and  not  at  the 
beginning  of  the  month.  That  in  the  European 
Magazine,  which  was  more  critical  than  bio- 
graphical, was  continued  through  several  num- 
bers, and  contains  nothing  to  distinguish  it  from 
the  respectable  and  laborious  journey-work  of  the 
period.  The  sketch  in  the  Gentleman's  Maga- 
\im  is  of  a  far  more  meritorious  character,  and 
was  from  the  pen  of  Tom  Tyers,  the  "Tom 
Restless"  of  the  Idler,  and  the  son  of  Jon- 
athan, "  the  founder  of  that  excellent  place  of 
publick  amusement,  Vauxhall  Gardens."  Tyers 
had  really  known  Johnson  with  a  certain  degree 
of  intimacy,  and  even  Boswell  is  obliged  to 
admit  that  Tyers  lived  with  his  illustrious  friend 


Boswell's  Predecessors  and  Editors.     1 1 3 

uin  as  easy  a  manner  as  almost  any  of  his  very 
numerous  acquaintance."  He  has  certainly  not 
caught  Johnson's  style,  as  his  memories  are 
couched  in  abrupt  shorthand  sentences  which 
are  the  reverse  of  Johnsonese.  But  apart  from 
a  certain  vanity  of  classical  quotation,  with  which 
he  seems  to  have  been  twitted  by  his  contempo- 
raries, "  Tom  Restless  "  writes  like  a  gentleman, 
and  is  fully  entitled  to  the  praise  of  having  pro- 
duced the  first  animated  sketch  of  Johnson,  who, 
from  a  sentence  towards  the  close,  appears  to 
have  anticipated  that  Tyers  might  be  one  day 
"  called  upon  to  assist  a  posthumous  account  of 
him."  Mr.  Napier  says  that  Tyers  continued 
his  sketch  in  the  Gentleman  s  Magazine  for  Jan- 
uary, 1785.  This  is  not  quite  exact,  and  is  in- 
deed practically  contradicted  by  Mrs.  Napier, 
since  in  the  valuable  volume  of  "  Johnsoniana" 
which  accompanies  her  husband's  edition,  she 
prints  no  more  than  is  to  be  found  in  the 
December  number.  What  Tyers  really  did 
was  to  insert  a  number  of  minor  corrections  in 
the  annual  supplement  to  the  Gentleman  s  Mag- 
a^ine,  and  in  the  following  number. 

Without  a  close  examination  of  contemporary 
advertisement  sheets  it  would  be  difficult  to  fix 
precisely  the  date  of  publication  of  the  next 
biography.  It  is  a  small  duodecimo  of  197 


H4  Miscellanies. 

pages,  entitled  "  Memoirs  of  the  Life  and  Writ- 
ings of  the  Late  Dr.  Samuel  Johnson."  The 
title-page  is  dated  1785.  In  the  Preface  men- 
tion is  made  of  assistance  rendered  by  Thomas 
Davies,  the  actor-bookseller  of  Russell  Street, 
Covent  Garden,  who  is  described  as  "the  late." 
The  book  must  therefore  have  appeared  after 
Thursday,  May  $,  when  Davies  died.  Its  author 
is  supposed  to  have  been  the  Rev.  William  Shaw, 
"a  modest  and  a  decent  man,"  referred  to  in 
Boswell  as  the  compiler  of  "  an  Erse  Grammar," 
subsequently  issued  in  1788  as  "An  Analysis  of 
the  Gaelic  Language."  Colour  is  given  to  this 
supposition  by  the  fact  that  another  of  the  per- 
sons who  supplied  information  was  Mr.  Elphin- 
ston,  by  whom  Shaw  was  introduced  to  Johnson, 
and  by  the  references  made  to  the  Ossianic  con- 
troversy, in  which  Shaw  did  battle  on  Johnson's 
side  against  Macpherson.  For  the  book  itself, 
it  is,  like  most  of  the  pre-Boswellian  efforts, 
Tyers's  sketch  excepted,  mainly  critical,  and 
makes  no  attempt  to  reproduce  Johnson's  talk 
or  sayings. 

Chit-chat  and  personal  characteristics  are, 
however,  somewhat  more  fully  represented  in 
what  —  neglecting  for  the  moment  Boswell's 
"Journal  of  a  Tour  to  the  Hebrides"  —  may 
be  regarded  as  the  next  effort  in  the  biographi- 


BosweWs  Predecessors  and  Editors.     115 

cal  sequence,  the  famous  "  Anecdotes  of  the 
Late  Samuel  Johnson,  LL.D.,  during  the  Last 
Twenty  Years  of  his  Life,"  by  Hesther  Lynch 
Piozzi,  which  was  published  in  March,  1786. 
Written  in  Italy,  where  she  was  then  living,  it 
was  printed  in  London.  Its  success,  as  might 
perhaps  have  been  anticipated  from  the  author's 
long  connection  with  Johnson,  was  exceptional. 
The  first  edition,  like  that  of  Fielding's  "Amelia," 
was  exhausted  on  the  day  of  publication,  and 
other  editions  followed  rapidly.  Boswell,  as  may 
be  guessed,  was  not  well  disposed  towards  the 
work  of  his  fortunate  rival,  and  in  his  own  book 
is  at  considerable  pains  to  expose  her  "mistaken 
notion  of  Dr.  Johnson's  character,"  while  his 
coadjutor,  Malone,  who  tells  us  that  she  made 
£'-)QO  by  the  "  Anecdotes,"  plainly  calls  her 
both  "inaccurate  and  artful."  We,  who  are 
neither  editors  nor  biographers  of  Boswell,  need 
not  assume  so  censorious  an  attitude.  That 
Mrs.  Piozzi,  by  habit  of  mind,  and  from  the 
circumstances  under  which  her  narrative  was 
compiled,  was  negligent  in  her  facts  (she  even 
blunders  as  to  the  date  when  she  first  met 
Johnson)  may  be  admitted,  and  it  is  not  in- 
conceivable that,  as  Mrs.  Napier  says  in  the 
"  Prefatory  Notice"  to  her  "  Johnsoniana,"  her 
account  would  have  been  "  more  tender  and 


1 1 6  Miscellanies. 

true  if  it  had  been  given  by  Mrs.  Thrale  instead 
of  Mrs.  Piozzi."  But  the  cumulative  effect  of 
her  vivacious  and  disconnected  recollections 
(even  Malone  admits  them  to  be  "lively")  is 
rather  corroborative  of,  than  at  variance  with, 
that  produced  by  Johnson's  more  serious  biogra- 
phers. Her  opportunities  were  great,  —  perhaps 
greater  than  those  of  any  of  her  contemporaries, 
—  her  intercourse  with  Johnson  was  most  un- 
restrained and  unconventional,  and  notwith- 
standing all  its  faults,  her  little  volume  remains 
an  essential  part  of  Johnsonian  literature. 

Boswell,  whose  magnum  opus  we  are  now 
approaching,  so  fills  the  foreground  with  his 
fame  that  the  partial  obliteration  of  his  prede- 
cessors is  almost  a  necessary  consequence.  In 
this  way  Sir  John  Hawkins,  whose  "  Life  of 
Samuel  Johnson,  LL.D.,"  1787,  comes  next  in 
importance  to  Mrs.  Piozzi's  "  Anecdotes,"  has 
suffered  considerably ;  and  his  book,  which  im- 
mediately after  Johnson's  death  was  advertised 
as  "  forthcoming,"  is,  to  use  the  words  of  a  re- 
cent writer,  "  spoken  of  with  contempt  by  many 
who  have  never  taken  the  trouble  to  do  more 
than  turn  over  its  leaves."  That  the  author 
seems  to  have  been  extremely  unpopular  can 
scarcely  be  denied.  Malone,  who  accumulates 
a  page  of  his  characteristics,  says  that  Percy 


BosiveWs  Predecessors  and  Editors.     117 

called  him  "most  detestable,"  Reynolds,  "ab- 
solutely dishonest,"  and  Dyer,  "  mischievous, 
uncharitable,  and  malignant,"  to  which  garland 
of  dispraise  the  recorder  adds,  as  his  own  con- 
tribution, that  he  was  "rigid  and  sanctimonious." 
Johnson,  too,  styled  him  "  an  unclubable  man." 
But  against  all  this  censure  it  must  be  remem- 
bered that  he  was  selected  as  one  of  the  first 
members  of  "The  Club  "  (to  whose  promoters 
his  peculiarities  can  scarcely  have  been  unknown, 
for  he  had  belonged  to  the  earlier  association 
in  Ivy  Lane),  and  that  Johnson  appointed  him 
one  of  his  executors.  Boswell,  whose  vanity 
Hawkins  had  wounded  by  the  slight  and 
supercilious  way  in  which  he  spoke  of  him  in 
the  "  Life,"  could  scarcely  be  supposed  to  feel 
kindly  to  him  ;  and  though  he  professes  to  have 
modified  what  he  said  of  this  particular  rival  on 
account  of  his  death,  we  have  no  means  of 
knowing  how  much  he  suppressed.  He  gives, 
nevertheless,  what  on  the  whole  is  a  not  unfair 
idea  of  Hawkins's  volume.  "However  inade- 
quate and  improper,"  he  says,  "as  a  Life  of  Dr. 
Johnson,  and  however  discredited  by  unpardon- 
able inaccuracies  in  other  respects,  [it]  contains 
a  collection  of  curious  anecdotes  and  observa- 
tions which  few  men  but  its  authour  could  have 
brought  together."  What  is  commendatory  in 


n8  Miscellanies. 

this  verdict  is  not  exaggerated,  and  those  who 
care  enough  for  Johnson  to  travel  beyond  Bos- 
well  will  certainly  find  Hawkins  by  no  means 
so  "ponderous"  as  Boswell  would  have  us  to 
believe.  Many  of  the  particulars  he  gives  are 
certainly  not  to  be  found  elsewhere,  and  his 
knowledge  of  the  seamy  side  of  letters  in  Geor- 
gian London  was  "  extensive  and  peculiar." 

To  speak  of  Hawkins  after  Mrs.  Piozzi  is  a 
course  more  convenient  than  chronological,  as 
it  involves  the  neglect  of  an  intermediate  biogra- 
pher. But  the  "  Essay  on  the  Life,  Character, 
and  Writings  of  Dr.  Samuel  Johnson,"  from  the 
pen  of  the  Rev.  Joseph  Towers,  which  comes 
between  them  in  1786,  has  no  serious  import. 
It  treats  more  of  the  writings  than  the  character 
and  life,  and,  except  as  the  respectable  effort 
of  an  educated  man,  need  not  detain  us  from 
Boswell  himself,  whose  first  offering  at  the 
shrine  of  his  adoration  was  made  in  September, 
1785,  when  he  published  the  "Journal  of  a 
Tour  to  the  Hebrides  with  Samuel  Johnson, 
LL.D."  The  tour,  of  which  Johnson  had  him- 
self given  an  account  in  his  "Journey  to  the 
Western  Islands  of  Scotland,"  had  taken  place 
as  far  back  as  1773,  and  Boswell's  journal  had 
lain  by  him  ever  since.  But  the  manuscript  had 
been  lent  to  different  persons,  —  to  Mrs.  Thrale 


Bosiv ell's  Predecessors  and  Editors.     119 

among  the  rest.  "  I  am  glad  you  read  Boswell's 
journal,"  said  Johnson  to  her;  ''you  are  now 
sufficiently  informed  of  the  whole  transaction, 
and  need  not  regret  that  you  did  not  make  the 
tour  to  the  Hebrides."  A  more  emphatic  tes- 
timony is  contained  in  the  "Journal"  itself. 
Johnson,  we  are  told,  perused  it  diligently  from 
day  to  day,  and  declared  that  he  took  great 
delight  in  doing  so.  "  It  might  be  printed,"  he 
said,  "were  the  subject  fit  for  printing,"  and 
further  on  he  forbade  Boswell  to  contract  it. 
In  his  dedication  to  Malone,  whose  acquaint- 
ance he  made  in  Baldwin's  printing  office  while 
correcting  the  proofs,  Boswell  showed  that  he 
was  conscious  of  the  strong  point  of  his  work, 
"the  numerous  conversations,  which  (he  said) 
form  the  most  valuable  part."  In  the  third  edi- 
tion, dated  August,  1786,  the  success  of  the 
book  justified  an  ampler  note  of  gratification : 
"  I  will  venture  to  predict,  that  this  specimen 
of  the  colloquial  talents  and  extemporaneous 
effusions  of  my  illustrious  fellow-traveller  will 
become  still  more  valuable,  when,  by  the  lapse 
of  time,  he  shall  have  become  an  ANCIENT  ;  when 
all  those  who  can  now  bear  testimony  to  the 
transcendent  powers  of  his  mind  shall  have 
passed  away  ;  and  no  other  memorial  of  this 
great  and  good  man  shall  remain  but  the  follow- 


1 20  Miscellanies. 

ing  Journal,  the  other  anecdotes  and  letters 
preserved  by  his  friends,  and  those  incompar- 
able works,  which  have  for  many  years  been 
in  the  highest  estimation,  and  will  be  read  and 
admired  as  long  as  the  English  language  shall 
be  spoken  or  understood."  Whether  this  varia- 
tion of  Exegi  monumentum  is  justifiable  or  not  — 
and  certainly  some  of  the  "incomparable  works," 
have  but  faintly  fulfilled  their  promise  of  perpe- 
tuity—  Boswell's  accentuation  of  his  distinctive 
excellence,  his  admirably  characteristic  records 
of  conversations,  is  unanswerable  evidence  of  a 
settled  purpose  and  a  definite  aim. 

On  a  fly-leaf  of  the  "  Tour  to  the  Hebrides  " 
(not  as  Mr.  Napier  seems  to  suppose,  confined 
to  the  third  edition)  was  announced  as  "prepar- 
ing for  the  press  "  the  greater  work  by  which 
the  "Tour"  was  succeeded  in  1791.  At  first 
it  was  to  have  been  comprised  in  one  quarto 
volume,  but  it  ultimately  made  its  appearance  in 
two.  The  publisher  was  Charles  Dilly,  in  the 
Poultry,  and  the  title-page  ran  as  follows  :  — 

"The  Life  of  Samuel  Johnson,  LL.D.,  com- 
prehending an  Account  of  his  Studies  and  numer- 
ous Works,  in  chronological  Order  ;  a  Series  of 
his  Epistolary  Correspondence  and  Conversa- 
tions with  many  eminent  Persons  ;  and  various 
original  Pieces  of  his  Composition,  never  be- 


Boswelis  Predecessors  and  Editors.     121 

fore  published.  The  whole  exhibiting  a  View 
of  Literature  and  Literary  Men  in  Great-Brit- 
ain, for  near  half  a  Century,  during  which  he 
flourished." 

In  the  dedication  to  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds, 
referring  to  the  earlier  book,  Boswell  dwells 
upon  a  difference  of  treatment  which  distinguishes 
the  "Life"  from  its  predecessor.  In  the 
"Tour"  he  had,  it  seems,  been  too  open  in  his 
communications,  freely  exhibiting  to  the  world 
the  dexterity  of  Johnson's  wit,  even  when  that 
wit  was  exercised  upon  himself.  His  frankness 
had  in  some  quarters  been  mistaken  for  insensi- 
bility, and  he  has  therefore  in  the  "  Life"  been 
"  more  reserved,"  and  though  he  tells  nothing 
but  the  truth,  has  still  kept  in  his  mind  that  the 
whole  truth  is  not  always  to  be  exposed.  In 
the  Advertisement  which  succeeds  he  enlarges 
upon  the  difficulties  of  his  task,  and  the  labour 
involved  in  the  arrangement  and  collection  of 
material  ;  and  he  expresses  his  obligations  to 
Malone,  who  had  heard  nearly  all  the  book  in 
manuscript,  and  had  revised  about  half  of  it  in 
type.  Seventeen  hundred  copies  of  it  were 
printed,  and  although  the  price  in  boards  was 
two  guineas,  between  May  (when  the  book 
appeared)  and  August  twelve  hundred  of  these 
had  been  sold.  Boswell,  who  gives  this  infor- 


122  Miscellanies. 

mation  to  his  friend  Temple,  in  a  letter  dated 
the  22nd  of  the  latter  month,  expected  that  the 
entire  impression  would  be  disposed  of  before 
Christmas. 

This  hope,  however,  does  not  appear  to  have 
been  realised,  since  the  second  edition  in  three 
volumes  octavo,  considerably  revised,  and  in- 
cluding "eight  sheets  of  additional  matter,"  was 
not  published  until  July,  1793.  During  the 
progress  of  the  work  through  the  press  many 
additional  letters  and  anecdotes  had  come  to 
hand,  which  were  inserted  in  an  introduction 
and  appendix.  These  numerous  improvements 
were  at  the  same  time  printed  in  quarto  form  for 
the  benefit  of  the  purchasers  of  the  issue  of  1791, 
and  sold  at  half-a-crown,  under  the  title  of  "The 
Principal  Corrections  and  Additions  to  the  First 
Edition  of  Mr.  Boswell's  Life  of  Dr.  Johnson." 
As  in  the  "Tour  to  the  Hebrides,"  the  success 
of  his  labours  inspired  their  author  with  a  greater 
exultation  of  prefatory  language.  Referring  to 
the  death  of  Reynolds,  which  had  taken  place 
in  the  interval  between  the  first  and  second 
editions,  he  says  that  Sir  Joshua  had  read  the 
book,  and  given  "  the  strongest  testimony  to  its 
fidelity."  He  has  Johnsonised  the  land,  he  says 
farther  on,  and  he  trusts  "  they  will  not  only 
talk  but  think  Johnson." 


BoswelVs  Predecessors  and  Editors.     123 

He  was  still  busily  amending  and  retouching 
for  a  third  edition  when  he  died,  on  May 
19,  1795,  at  his  house,  then  No.  47,  but  now 
(or  recently)  No.  122,  Great  Portland  Street. 
His  task  was  taken  up  by  Malone,  who  had 
been  his  adviser  from  the  first,  and  under 
Malone's  superintendence  was  issued,  "revised 
and  augmented,"  the  third  edition  of  1799. 
From  the  fact  that  it  contains  Boswell's  latest 
touches,  this  edition  is  held  to  be  the  most  de- 
sirable by  Johnson  students.  Boswell's  friends 
contributed  several  notes,  some  of  which  were 
the  work  of  the  author's  second  son,  James, 
then  a  student  at  Brasenose  College,  Oxford. 
Fourth,  fifth,  and  sixth  editions  followed,  all 
under  the  editorship  of  Malone.  Then,  shortly 
after  the  publication  in  181 1  of  the  last  of  these, 
Malone  himself  died.  Seventh,  eighth,  and 
ninth  editions,  all  avowedly  or  unavowedly 
reproducing  Malone's  last  issue,  subsequently 
appeared,  the  ninth  having  some  additions  by 
Alexander  Chalmers.  Then  came  what  is  known 
as  the  "Oxford"  edition,  by  F.  P.  Walesby,  of 
Wadham  College,  which  contained  some  fresh 
recollections  of  Johnson  and  some  stray  particu- 
lars as  to  Boswell,  whose  portrait,  for  the  first 
time,  is  added.  A  tiny  issue  in  one  volume, 
small  octavo,  beautifully  printed  in  double  col- 


1 24  Miscellanies. 

umns  at  the  Chiswick  Press,  is  the  only  one 
that  needs  mention  previous  to  the  historical 
edition  by  the  Right  Honourable  John  Wilson 
Croker,  published  in  1831. 

As  will  be  seen,  the  foregoing  paragraphs 
deal  more  with  Johnson's  earlier  biographers 
than  with  the  main  subject  of  this  paper,  Bos- 
well's  editors.  But  the  earlier  biographers  are, 
if  not  the  chief,  at  least  no  inconsiderable  part 
of  the  material  employed  by  those  editors,  and 
by  none  more  conspicuously,  more  ably,  and  at 
the  same  time  more  unhappily,  than  by  the  one 
whose  labours  attracted  the  censure  of  Macaulay 
and  Carlyle.  What  is  most  distinctive  in  Bos- 
well  is  Boswell's  method  and  Boswell's  manner. 
Long  before,  Johnson  had  touched  upon  this 
personal  quality  when  writing  of  the  Corsican 
tour.  "  Your  History/'  he  said,  "  is  like  other 
histories,  but  your  Journal  is  in  a  very  high 
degree  curious  and  delightful.  .  .  .  Your  His- 
tory was  copied  from  books  ;  your  Journal  rose 
out  of  your  own  experience  and  observation. 
You  express  images  which  operated  strongly 
upon  yourself,  and  you  have  impressed  them 
with  great  force  upon  your  readers."  From 
less  friendly  critics  the  verdict  was  the  same. 
Walpole,  though  caustic  and  flippant,  speaks  to 
like  purport ;  and  Gray,  who  has  been  "  pleased 


Boswells  Predecessors  and  Editors.     12$ 

and  moved  strangely,"  declares  it  proves  what 
he  has  always  maintained,  "that  any  fool  may 
write  a  most  valuable  book  by  chance,  if  he 
will  only  tell  us  what  he  heard  and  saw  with 
veracity."  This  faculty  of  communicating  his 
impressions  accurately  to  his  reader  is  BoswelTs 
most  conspicuous  gift.  Present  in  his  first 
book,  it  was  more  present  in  his  second,  and 
when  he  began  his  great  biography  it  had 
reached  its  highest  point.  So  individual  is  his 
manner,  so  unique  his  method  of  collecting  and 
arranging  his  information,  that  to  disturb  the 
native  character  of  his  narrative  by  interpolating 
foreign  material,  must  of  necessity  impair  its 
specific  character  and  imperil  its  personal  note. 
Yet,  by  some  strange  freak  of  fate,  this  was  just 
the  very  treatment  to  which  it  was  subjected. 

From  the  very  outset  indeed,  it  would  seem, 
his  text  was  considerably  "  edited.'1  Boswell, 
like  many  writers  of  his  temperament,  was  fond 
of  stimulating  his  flagging  invention  by  miscella- 
neous advice,  and  it  is  plain  from  the  comparison 
of  his  finished  work  with  his  rough  notes,  that 
in  order  to  make  his  anecdotes  more  direct  and 
effective  he  freely  manipulated  his  reminiscences. 
But  it  is  quite  probable  —  and  this  is  a  point 
that  we  do  not  remember  to  have  seen  touched 
on  —  that  much  of  the  trimming  which  his 


ii6  Miscellanies. 

records  received  is  attributable  to  Malone.  At 
all  events,  when  Malone  took  up  the  editing 
after  Boswell's  death,  he  is  known  to  have 
made  many  minor  alterations  in  the  process  of 
"  settling  the  text,"  and  it  is  only  reasonable  to 
suppose  that  he  had  done  the  same  thing  in  the 
author's  lifetime,  a  supposition  which  would  ac- 
count for  some  at  least  of  the  variations  which 
have  been  observed  between  Boswell's  anec- 
dotes in  their  earliest  and  their  latest  forms. 
But  the  admitted  alterations  of  Malone  were 
but  trifles  compared  with  the  extraordinary  re- 
adjustment which  the  book,  as  Malone  left  it, 
received  at  the  hands  of  Mr.  Croker.  Not  con- 
tent with  working  freely  upon  the  text  itself — 
compressing,  omitting,  transposing,  as  seemed 
good  in  his  eyes  —  by  a  process  almost  incon- 
ceivable in  a  critic  and  litterateur  of  admitted 
experience,  he  liberally  interlarded  it  with  long 
extracts  and  letters  from  Hawkins,  Piozzi,  Cum- 
berland, Murphy,  and  others  of  Boswell's  prede- 
cessors and  successors,  and  so  turned  into  an 
irregular  patchwork  what  the  author  had  left  a 
continuous  and  methodical  design.  Further- 
more he  incorporated  with  it,  among  other 
things,  under  its  date  of  occurrence,  the  separate 
volume  of  the  "Tour  to  the  Hebrides,"  having 
first  polled  and  trimmed  that  work  according  to 


Boswells  Predecessors  and  Editors.     127 

his  taste  and  fancy.  Finally,  he  added  —  and 
this  is  the  least  questionable  of  his  acts  —  an 
inordinate  number  of  footnotes.  Many  of  these, 
it  must  be  conceded,  are  of  the  highest  value. 
Penned  at  a  time  when  memories  of  Johnson 
and  his  contemporaries  were  still  fresh  in  men's 
minds,  and  collected  by  a  writer  whose  industry 
and  curiosity  were  as  exceptional  as  his  equip- 
ment and  opportunities,  they  must  always  re- 
main an  inestimable  magazine  of  Johnsoniana. 
Their  worst  fault  is  that  they  are  more  a  ware- 
house than  a  treasury,  and  that  they  exhibit  less 
of  literary  resource  than  literary  incontinence. 

But  if  the  intrinsic  worth  of  Croker's  volumi- 
nous annotations  has  survived  the  verbal  artillery 
of  Macaulay  and  Carlyle,  it  has  luckily  been 
otherwise  with  his  remodelling  of  Boswell's 
text,  the  principles  of  which  were  virtually 
abandoned  in  the  second  edition  of  1835.  Un- 
fortunately, the  execution  of  this  concession  to 
popular  opinion  was  only  partial.  Although  the 
majority  of  the  passages  added  to  the  text  were 
rearranged  as  foot-notes  or  distributed  into  ap- 
pendices, the  Scotch  "tour"  still  upreared  it- 
self in  the  midst  as  a  huge  stumbling-block, 
while  the  journey  to  Wales  and  the  letters  of 
Johnson  and  Mrs.  Thrale  were  retained.  In 
1847,  when  Mr.  Croker  prepared  his  definite 


1 28  Miscellanies. 

edition,  he  continued  impenitent  to  this  extent, 
although  he  speaks  in  his  "  Advertisement  "  of 
abridgment  and  alteration.  Nay,  he  even  ac- 
quiesced in  the  perpetuation  of  another  enor- 
mity which  dates  from  the  edition  of  1835  (an 
edition  which  he  only  partly  superintended),  the 
breaking  up  of  the  book  into  chapters.  This 
was  a  violation  of  Boswell's  plan  which  it  is 
impossible  to  describe  except  as  an  act  of  Van- 
dalism. "  Divisions  into  books  and  chapters," 
says  Mr.  Napier,  unanswerably  (if  somewhat 
grandiloquently),  "  are,  as  it  were,  articulations 
in  the  organic  whole  of  a  literary  composition  ; 
and  this  special  form  cannot  be  super-induced 
merely  externally."  Yet,  all  these  drawbacks 
to  the  contrary,  Mr.  Croker's  edition  enjoyed 
a  long  popularity,  and  the  edition  just  referred 
to  was  reprinted  as  late  as  1876. 

It  would  be  beyond  our  province  to  trace  the 
post-Crokerian  issues  of  Boswell's  book,  which, 
with  the  exception  of  an  illustrated  edition  un- 
der the  superintendence  of  Dr.  Robert  Car- 
ruthers,  author  of  the  life  of  Pope,  were  mainly 
reprints  of  Malone.  But  from  what  has  gone 
before,  it  will  be  surmised  that  the  presentation, 
as  far  as  practicable,  of  Boswell's  unsophisti- 
cated text  must  sooner  or  later  become  the 
ambition  of  the  modern  editor.  In  this  praise- 


BosiveWs  Predecessors  and  Editors.     129 

worthy  enterprise  the  pioneer  appears  to  have 
been  Mr.  Percy  Fitzgerald.  In  May,  1874, 
acting  with  the  encouragement  and  countenance 
of  Carlyle,  to  whom  his  work  was  dedicated, 
he  published  with  Messrs.  Bickers  an  edition  of 
Boswell's  "  Life  "  in  three  volumes,  of  which 
the  object  was  to  exhibit  Boswell's  text  in  its 
first  published  form,  and  at  the  same  time  to 
show  the  alterations  made  or  contemplated  by 
him  in  the  two  subsequent  editions  with  which 
he  was  concerned.  Thus  the  reader  was  en- 
abled to  follow  the  process  of  revision  in  the 
author's  mind,  and  to  derive  additional  satis- 
faction from  the  spectacle  of  the  naff  and  highly 
ingenuous  motives  which  prompted  many  of 
Boswell's  rectifications  and  re-adjustments.  As 
was  inevitable  in  such  a  plan,  the  "  tour  to  the 
Hebrides"  was  placed  by  itself  at  the  end,  an 
arrangement  which  had  also  been  followed  by 
Carruthers  ;  the  "  Diary  of  a  Tour  in  Wales," 
which  Mr.  Croker  had  turned  into  chap.  xlvi. 
of  his  compilation,  disappeared  altogether;  and 
the  interpolated  letters  knew  their  place  no 
more.  The  division  into  chapters  also  vanished 
with  the  restoration  of  the  original  text,  which, 
together  with  Boswell's  spelling,  punctuation, 
paragraphs,  and  other  special  characteristics, 
were  religiously  preserved.  By  this  arrange- 
9 


1 30  Miscellanies. 

ment,  taken  in  connection  with  the  foot-notes 
exhibiting  the  variations,  the  reader  was  placed 
in  the  position  of  a  person  having  before  him 
at  one  view  the  editions  of  1791,  1793,  and 
1799,  as  well  as  the  separate  "  Corrections  and 
Additions"  issued  by  Boswell  in  1793.  Mr. 
Fitzgerald  also  appended  certain  notes  of  his 
own  ;  but,  wherever  they  occurred  on  the  same 
page  as  Boswell's  work,  carefully  fenced  them 
off  by  a  line  of  demarcation  from  what  was 
legitimate  Bosweil.  Upon  these  notes,  gener- 
ally brief  and  apposite,  it  is  not  necessary  to 
dwell.  The  noticeable  characteristic  of  Mr. 
Fitzgerald's  edition  is  its  loyalty  to  Boswell, 
and  for  that,  if  for  that  only,  the  lovers  of  John- 
son owe  him  a  deep  debt  of  gratitude.1 

In  1880,  six  years  after  the  first  appearance 
of  the  above  edition  of  Boswell's  "  Life,"  Mr. 
Fitzgerald  published,  under  the  title  of  "  Crok- 
er's  Boswell  and  Boswell,"  a  volume  which  was 
apparently  the  outcome  of  his  earlier  labours 
in  this  field.  With  the  first  part  of  this,  which 
treats  mainly  of  the  feud  between  Macaulay 
and  Croker,  and  the  peculiarities  and  defects 

1  Mr.  Fitzgerald's  edition  of  Boswell  was  re-issued  in 
1888,  with  a  new  and  interesting  preface,  to  which  was 
added  the  valuable  Bibliography  by  Mr.  H.  R.  Tedder, 
referred  to  at  the  beginning  of  this  paper. 


BoswelVs  Predecessors  and  Editors.     131 

of  the  latter  as  an  editor,  we  have  no  imme- 
diate concern.  But  the  second  part,  which 
exhibits  Boswell  at  his  work,  collects  much 
valuable  information  with  respect  to  his  method 
of  note-making,  and,  with  the  assistance  of  the 
curious  memoranda  belonging  to  the  late  Lord 
Houghton,  published  in  1874  by  the  Grampian 
Club  under  the  title  of  "  Boswelliana,"  shows 
how  much  judicious  correction  and  adroit  com- 
pression went  to  produce  these  "  literary  and 
characteristical  anecdotes  .  .  .  told  with  au- 
thenticity, and  in  a  lively  manner,"  which,  as 
Boswell  explained  to  his  friend  Temple,  were  to 
form  the  staple  of  his  work.  Other  chapters 
of  equal  interest  deal  with  Boswell's  strange 
antipathies  and  second  thoughts,  both  of  which 
themes,  and  the  former  especially,  are  of  no 
small  importance  to  the  minute  student  of  his 
labours.  We  have  mentioned  this  book  of  Mr. 
Fitzgerald's,  because,  among  the  many  pro- 
ductions of  his  indefatigable  pen,  it  is  the  one 
which  has  always  interested  us  most,  and  it  is 
obviously,  as  he  declares  in  his  preface,  written 
con  amore. 

That  the  reproduction  of  Boswell  neat  —  to 
use  a  convenient  vulgarism  —  had  attracted 
closer  attention  to  the  defects  of  Croker's  con- 
coction may  be  fairly  assumed,  and  the  volume 


1 3  2  Miscellanies. 

just  mentioned  probably,  and  certainly  among 
specialists,  enforced  this  impression.  Accord- 
ingly, in  1884,  a  new  edition  of  the  "  Life," 
upon  which  the  editor,  the  late  Rev.  Alexander 
Napier,  vicar  of  Holkham,  had  been  engaged 
for  many  years,  was  issued  by  Messrs.  George 
Bell  and  Sons.  It  was  illustrated  by  facsimiles, 
steel  engravings  and  portraits,  and  was  received 
with  considerable,  and  even,  in  some  quarters, 
exaggerated,  enthusiasm.  In  this  edition  the 
arrangement  of  Boswell's  text  was  strictly  fol- 
lowed, and  the  tours  in  Wales  and  Scotland 
were  printed  separately.  Many  of  Croker's 
notes  were  withdrawn  or  abridged,  and  Mr. 
Napier,  in  pursuance  of  a  theory,  which  is  as 
sound  as  it  is  unusual,  also  omitted  all  those  in 
which  his  predecessor  had  considered  it  his 
duty  "  to  act  as  censor  on  Boswell  "  and  even 
on  Johnson  himself.  The  editor's  duty,  said 
Mr.  Napier,  "  is  to  subordinate  himself  to  his 
author,  and  admit  that  only  which  elucidates  his 
author's  meaning.  ...  It  cannot  be  the  duty 
of  an  editor  to  insult  the  writer  whose  book  he 
edits.  I  confess  that  the  notes  of  Mr.  Croker 
which  most  offend  are  those  in  which,  not  sel- 
dom, he  delights  —  let  me  be  allowed  to  use  a 
familiar  colloquialism  —  to  snub  '  Mr.  Boswell.'" 
In  this  deliverance  no  reasonable  reader  can  fail 


BosweWs  Predecessors  and  Editors.     1^3 

to  concur.  Besides  the  editing  of  Croker,  how- 
ever, Mr.  Napier  added  many  useful  notes  of 
his  own,  as  well  as  some  very  interesting  ap- 
pendices. One  of  these  reproduces  the  auto- 
biographical sketch  of  Johnson  prefixed  by 
Richard  Wright  of  Lichfield,  in  180^,  to  Miss 
Hill  Boothby's  letters  ;  another  deals  with  that 
mysterious  "History  of  Prince  Titi "  which 
figures  in  Macaulay's  review  of  Croker's  first 
edition  ;  a  third  successfully  dissipates  the  leg- 
endary account  of  a  meeting  between  Ursa 
Major  and  Adam  Smith,  which  represents  those 
"  grave  and  reverend  seignors "  as  engaged  in 
competitive  Billingsgate.  "  Carleton's  Me- 
moirs," Theophilus  Gibber's  "  Lives  of  the 
Poets,"  and  the  daughters  of  Mauritius  Lowe 
are  also  treated  of  in  this,  the  newest  part  of 
Mr.  Napier's  labours. 

But  his  edition  also  includes  a  valuable  supple- 
ment in  the  shape  of  a  volume  of  "  Johnsoniana," 
collected  and  edited  by  Mrs.  Napier,  whose 
praiseworthy  plan  is  to  avoid  merely  fragmentary 
"  sayings  "  and  "  anecdotes,"  and,  as  far  as  pos- 
sible, to  give  only  complete  articles.  Thus 
Mrs.  Napier  opens  with  Mrs.  Piozzi's  book,  and 
then  goes  on  to  reprint  Hawkins'  collection  of 
apophthegms,  the  Hill  Boothby  correspondence, 
Tyers'  sketch  from  the  Gentleman's  Magazine, 


134  Miscellanies. 

the  essay  published  by  Arthur  Murphy  in  1792 
for  his  edition  of  Johnson's  works,  and  various 
recollections  and  so  forth  collected  from  Rey- 
nolds, Cumberland,  Madame  D'Arblay,  Hannah 
More,  Percy,  and  others.  But  her  freshest 
trouvaille  is  the  diary  of  a  certain  Dr.  Thomas 
Campbell,  an  Irishman  who  visited  England  in 
1775,  and,  afterthe  fashion  of  the  time,  recorded 
his  impressions.  This  diary  has  a  curious  his- 
tory. Carried  to  Australia  by  some  of  its  writer's 
descendants,  it  was  peaceably  travelling  towards 
dissolution  when  it  was  unearthed  behind  an  old 
press  in  one  of  the  offices  of  the  Supreme  Court 
of  New  South  Wales.  In  18^4  it  was  published 
at  Sydney  by  Mr.  Samuel  Raymond,  and  from 
that  date  until  1884  does  not  seem  to  have  been 
reprinted  in  England.  Dr.  Campbell  had  some 
repute  as  an  historian,  and  it  was  he  who  pre- 
pared for  Percy  the  memoir  of  Goldsmith  which, 
in  1837,  was  in  the  possession  of  Mr.  Prior,  and 
formed  the  first  sketch  for  the  straggling  com- 
pilation afterwards  prefixed  to  the  well-known 
edition  of  Goldsmith's  works  dated  1801. 
Campbell's  avowed  object  in  coming  to  London 
was  to  "  see  the  lions,"  and  his  notes  are  suf- 
ficiently amusing.  He  lodged  at  the  Grecian 
Coffee  House,  and  at  the  Hummums  in  Covent 
Garden,  where  once  appeared  the  ghost  of 


BosweWs  Predecessors  and  Editors.     13$ 
Johnson's  dissolute  relative,  Parson  Ford,  the 

"  fortem  validumque  combibonem 
Laetantem  super  amphora  repleta  " 

of  Vincent  Bourne's  hendecasyllabics  ;  he  saw 
Woodward  in  Hoadly's  "  Suspicious  Husband," 
and  Garrick  as  Lusignan  and  Lear,  in  which 
latter  character  Dr.  Campbell,  contradicting  all 
received  tradition,  considered  "  he  could  not 
display  himself."  He  went  to  the  auction-rooms 
in  the  Piazza  ;  he  went  to  the  Foundling  and 
the  Temple  and  Dr.  Dodd's  Chapel ;  he  went  to 
Ranelagh  and  the  Pantheon,  where  he  watched 
those  lapsed  lovers,  Lady  Grosvenor  and  the 
Duke  of  Cumberland,  carefully  avoiding  each 
other.  He  dined  often  at  Thrale's,  meeting 
Boswell  and  Baretti,  and  Murphy  and  Johnson. 
With  the  great  man  he  was  not  impressed,  and 
his  portrait  affords  an  example  of  Johnson  as  he 
struck  an  unsympathetic  contemporary.  Accord- 
ing to  Dr.  Campbell  this  was  his  picture :  — 
"  He  has  the  aspect  of  an  Idiot,  without  the 
faintest  ray  of  sense  gleaming  from  any  one 
feature  —  with  the  most  awkward  garb,  and  un- 
powdered  grey  wig,  on  one  side  only  of  his 
head  —  he  is  for  ever  dancing  the  devil's  jig,  and 
sometimes  he  makes  the  most  driveling  effort  to 
whistle  some  thought  in  his  absent  paroxisms. 


136  Miscellanies. 

He  came  up  to  me  and  took  me  by  the  hand, 
then  sat  down  upon  a  sofa,  and  mumbled  out 
that  '  he  had  heard  two  papers  had  appeared 
against  him  in  the  course  of  this  week  —  one  of 
which  was  —  that  he  was  to  go  to  Ireland  next 
summer  in  order  to  abuse  the  hospitality  of  that 
place  also  [a  reference  to  the  recently  published 
"  Journey  to  the  Western  Islands  "  ].'  His  awk- 
wardness at  table  is  just  what  Chesterfield  de- 
scribed, and  his  roughness  of  manners  kept  pace 
with  that.  When  Mrs.  Thrale  quoted  something 
from  Foster's  '  Sermons '  he  flew  in  a  passion, 
and  said  that  Foster  was  a  man  of  mean  ability, 
and  of  no  original  thinking.  All  which  tho'  I 
took  to  be  most  true,  yet  I  held  it  not  meet 
to  have  it  so  set  down."  From  this  it  will  be 
perceived  that  Dr.  Campbell  was  of  those  who 
identified  the  "respectable  Hottentot"  of 
Chesterfield's  letters  with  the  "great  Lexicog- 
rapher," an  identification  which  Dr.  Birkbeck 
Hill,  in  "Dr.  Johnson:  His  Friends  and  His 
Critics,"  has  successfully  shown  to  be  untenable. 
Towards  the  close  of  1884  Mr.  Napier's 
edition  was  reissued  in  the  "  Standard  Library," 
making  six  small  volumes,  in  which  some  only  of 
the  portrait  illustrations  of  the  first  issue  were 
reproduced.  The  chief  addition  consisted  of  a 
series  of  seven  letters  from  Boswell  to  his  friend 


BosweWs  Predecessors  and  Editors.     137 

Sir  David  Dalrymple.  Extracts  from  this  very 
interesting  correspondence,  bearing  upon  Bos- 
well's  first  acquaintance  with  his  Mentor,  had 
appeared  in  the  volume  of  "Boswelliana" 
already  mentioned,  but  they  had  been  but  ex- 
tracts. Mr.  Napier  gave  the  letters  in  extenso. 
Two  years  later  Professor  Henry  Morley  pub- 
lished, in  five  exceedingly  handsome  volumes, 
what,  from  the  fact  of  its  decoration  by  portraits 
from  the  brush  of  Sir  Joshua,  he  christened  the 
"  Reynolds"  edition.  In  common  with  all  Pro- 
fessor Morley's  work,  the  editing  of  this  issue 
was  thoroughly  straightforward  and  sensible. 
A  new  and  noticeable  feature  was  the  prefixing 
to  each  of  the  prefaces  of  the  different  editors 
a  succinct  account  of  the  writer.  At  the  end 
came  an  essay  entitled  the  "  Spirit  of  Johnson," 
to  which  can  scarcely  be  denied  the  merit 
claimed  for  it  by  a  competent  critic  of  being  "  one 
of  the  best  descriptions  of  Johnson's  character 
that  has  ever  been  written."  There  were  also 
elaborate  indices,  of  which  one  can  only  say  in 
their  dispraise  that  they  were  less  elaborate  than 
that  prepared  by  the  editor  who  follows  Pro- 
fessor Morlev.  Like  Mr.  Napier,  Mr.  Morley 
was  largely  indebted  to  Croker,  and  like  Mr. 
Napier  he  freely  pruned  his  predecessor's 
luxuriance. 


138  Miscellanies. 

Colonel  Francis  Grant's  excellent  little  me- 
moir in  the  "Great  Writers"  series  deserves 
mention,  because,  although  exceedingly  unpre- 
tentious, it  is  the  work  of  one  who,  to  borrow 
Boswell's  epithet  for  Malone,  is  certainly 
"  Johnsonianissimus."  It  is  impossible  to  turn 
his  anecdotical  pages  without  seeing  that  he  is 
steeped  in  the  literature  of  the  period,  and  that, 
for  him,  the  personages  of  the  Boswellian  drama 
have  all  the  reality  of  living  friends.  His 
volume,  too,  includes  a  valuable  bibliography  by 
Mr.  John  P.  Anderson  of  Johnson's  works, 
which,  in  point  of  time,  preceded  the  special 
bibliography  of  Boswell's  "  Life"  in  Mr.  Fitz- 
gerald's reprint.  And  this  brings  us  to  the  last 
work  on  our  list,  the  sumptuous  edition  by  Dr. 
George  Birkbeck  Hill,  issued  in  1887  from  the 
Clarendon  Press,  a  work  which  was  received 
with  an  almost  universal  chorus  of  praise. 

That  Dr.  Birkbeck  Hill's  book  is  "  unlivre  de 
bonne  foi"  there  can  indeed  be  little  doubt.  He  is 
well  known  as  a  devoted  worshipper  at  Johnson's 
shrine.  He  has  been  for  years  a  persistent  re- 
viewer of  books  on  this  subject  (especially  Mr. 
Fitzgerald's),  and  his  essays  (collected  in  1878 
from  the  Cornhill  and  other  periodicals  under 
the  title  of  "Dr.  Johnson:  His  Friends  and 
His  Critics"),  bear  that  unmistakable  stamp 


BoswelVs  Predecessors  and  Editors.     139 

which  denotes  the  writer  who  has  not  crammed 
his  subject  for  the  purpose  of  preparing  an  arti- 
cle, but  who  has,  so  to  speak,  let  the  article 
write  itself  out  of  the  fulness  of  his  resources. 
Besides  these  he  edited,  in  1879,  Boswell's 
"  Journal  of  a  Tour  to  Corsica  "  and  his  corres- 
pondence with  Andrew  Erskine.  But  he  has 
crowned  his  former  labours  by  this  sumptuous 
edition  with  its  excellent  typography,  its  hand- 
some page,  and  its  exhaustive  index,  which  last, 
we  can  well  believe,  must  have  cost  him,  as  he 
says,  "  many  months'  heavy  work."  That  he 
himself  executed  this  "sublunary  task,"  as  a 
recent  writer  has  described  it,  is  matter  for  con- 
gratulation ;  that  he  has  also  verified  it  page  by 
page  in  proof  almost  entitles  him  to  a  Montyon 
prize  for  exceptional  literary  virtue.  Our  only 
regret  is  that  his  "  Preface"  is  touched  a  little 
too  strongly  with  the  sense  of  his  unquestioned 
industry  and  conscientiousness.  However  legiti- 
mate it  may  be,  the  public  is  always  somewhat 
impatient  of  the  superbia  qucesita  mentis.  More- 
over, it  is  an  extremely  difficult  thing  to  display 
judiciously,  and,  after  all,  as  Carlyle  said  of 
Croker's  attempt,  the  editing  of  Bosvvell  is  "a 
praiseworthy  but  no  miraculous  procedure." 

This  note  of  self-gratulation  in  Dr.  Birkbeck 
Hill's  introductory  words  is,   however,  but  a 


140  Miscellanies. 

trifling  drawback  when  contrasted  with  the  real 
merits  of  a  work  which,  in  these  days  of  piping- 
hot  publication,  has  much  of  the  leisurely  grace 
of  eighteenth-century  scholarship.  The  labour 
—  not  only  the  labour  of  which  the  result  re- 
mains on  record,  but  that  bloomless  and  fruitless 
labour  with  which  everyone  who  has  been  en- 
gaged in  editorial  drudgery  can  sympathise  — 
must  have  been  unprecedented.  Nothing  could 
be  more  ungracious  than  to  smear  the  petty  blot 
of  an  occasional  inaccuracy  across  the  wide  field 
which  has  been  explored  so  observantly — cer- 
tainly it  could  not  be  the  desire  of  those  who 
have  ever  experienced  the  multiplied  chances  of 
error  involved  by  transcription,  press-correction, 
revision,  and  re-revision.  At  the  same  time  we 
frankly  own  that  we  think  Dr.  Birkbeck  Hill's 
edition  has  not  escaped  a  dangerous  defect  of  its 
qualities.  It  unquestionably  errs  on  the  side  of 
excess.  "  I  have  sought,"  he  says,  "to  follow 
him  [Johnson]  wherever  a  remark  of  his  re- 
quired illustration,  and  have  read  through  many 
a  book  that  I  might  trace  to  its  source  a  refer- 
ence or  an  allusion."  And  he  has  no  doubt 
been  frequently  very  fortunate,  notably  in  his 
identification  of  the  quotation  which  Johnson 
made  when  he  heard  the  Highland  girl  of  Nairne 
singing  at  her  spinning-wheel,  in  his  solution  of 


Boswelis  Predecessors  and  Editors.     141 

"  loplolly,"  and  in  half  a  dozen  similar  cases. 
But,  as  regards  "remarks  that  require  illustra- 
tion," there  are  manifestly  two  methods,  the 
moderate  and  the  immoderate.  By  the  one 
nothing  but  such  reference  or  elucidation  as  ex- 
plains the  text  is  admissible  ;  by  the  other  any- 
thing that  can  possibly  be  connected  with  it  is 
drawn  into  its  train,  and  the  motley  notes  tread 
upon  each  other's  heels  much  as,  in  the  fairy  tale, 
the  three  girls,  the  parson,  and  the  sexton  follow 
the  fellow  with  the  golden  goose.  To  the  latter 
of  these  methods  rather  than  the  former  Dr. 
Birkbeck  Hill  "seriously  inclines,"  and  almost 
any  portion  of  his  book  would  serve  to  supply 
a  case  in  point.  Take,  for  instance,  the  note  at 
page  269,  vol.  i.,  to  the  verse  which  Boswell 
quotes  from  Garrick's  well-known  "  Ode  on 
Mr.  Pelham."  Neither  Malone  nor  Croker 
has  anything  upon  this,  and  as  Boswell  himself 
tells  us  that  Pelham  died  on  the  day  on  which 
Mallet's  edition  of  Lord  Bolingbroke's  works 
came  out,  and  as  the  first  line  of  his  paragraph 
gives  the  exact  date  of  the  event,  it  is  difficult 
to  see  what  ground,  and  certainly  what  pressing 
need,  there  could  be  for  further  comment.  Yet 
Dr.  Birkbeck  Hill  has  no  less  than  four  "  illus- 
trations." First  he  tells  us,  from  Walpole's 
letters,  that  Pelham  died  of  a  surfeit.  This 


142  Miscellanies. 

suggests  another  quotation  from  Johnson  him- 
self about  the  death  of  Pope,  which  introduces 
the  story  of  the  potted  lampreys.  Then  comes 
a  passage  from  Fielding's  "  Journal  of  a  Voyage 
to  Lisbon,"  to  the  effect  that  he  (Fielding)  was 
at  his  worst  when  Pelham  died.  Lastly  comes 
a  second  quotation  from  Walpole,  this  time  from 
his  "  George  II.,"  in  which  we  are  told  that  the 
king  said  he  should  now  "  have  no  more  peace," 
because  Pelham  was  dead.  The  recondite  eru- 
dition of  all  this  is  incontestable,  but  its  utility 
is  more  than  doubtful.  Dr.  Birkbeck  Hill's 
method  is  seen  more  serviceably  at  work  in  a 
note  on  Reynolds's  visit  to  Devonshire  in  1762. 
First  we  get  a  record  how  Northcote,  "with 
great  satisfaction  to  his  mind,"  touched  the  skirt 
of  Sir  Joshua's  coat,  and  this  quite  naturally  re- 
calls the  well-known  anecdote  how  Reynolds 
himself  in  his  youth  had  grasped  the  hand  of  the 
great  Mr.  Pope  at  Christie's.  The  transition  to 
Pope's  own  visit  as  a  boy  of  twelve  to  Dryden 
at  Will's  Coffee  House  thus  becomes  an  easy 
one.  "  Who  touched  old  Northcote's  hand  ?  " 
says  Dr.  Birkbeck  Hill.  "  Has  the  apostolic  suc- 
cession been  continued?  "  and  then  he  goes  on 
to  add  :  "  Since  writing  these  lines  I  have  read 
with  pleasure  the  following  passage  in  Mr. 
Ruskin's  '  Prseterita,'  chap.  i.  p.  16:  'When 


Boswells  Predecessors  and  Editors.     14 5 

at  three-and-a-half  I  was  taken  to  have  my  por- 
trait painted  by  Mr.  Northcote,  I  had  not  been 
ten  minutes  alone  with  him  before  I  asked  him 
why  there  were  holes  in  his  carpet.'  Dryden, 
Pope,  Reynolds,  Northcote,  Ruskin,  so  runs  the 
chain  of  genius,  with  only  one  weak  link  in  it.'1 
This  is  an  excellent  specimen  of  the  concate- 
nated process  at  the  best.  We  are  bound  to  add 
that  there  are  many  as  good.  We  are  moreover 
bound  to  admit  that  the  examples  of  its  abuse 
are  by  no  means  obtrusive.  Dr.  Birkbeck  Hill, 
in  short,  has  done  his  work  thoroughly.  His 
appendices  —  e.  g.  those  on  Johnson's  Debates 
in  Parliament,  and  on  George  Psalmanazar  — 
are  practically  exhaustive,  and  he  has  left  no 
stone  unturned  in  his  labour  of  interpretation. 
If  in  the  result  of  that  labour  there  is  something 
of  what  Croker  called  "  surplusage,"  it  must 
also  be  conceded  that  Boswell's  famous  book 
has  never  before  been  annotated  with  equal 
enthusiasm,  learning,  and  industry.1 

1  Since  this  paper  was  first  published,  Dr.  Birkbeck 
Hill  has  largely  supplemented  his  Johnson  labours  by 
two  volumes  of  letters  (1892),  and  two  more  of  "John- 
sonian Miscellanies  "  ( 1 897 ) .  There  have  also  been  several 
other  issues  of  Boswell's  "  Life,''  —  notably  an  edition  in 
one  volume  by  Mr.  Fitzgerald,  which  is  a  marvel  of 
cheapness,  —  but  that  of  Dr.  Birkbeck  Hill  is  still  unri- 
valled in  its  kind. 


AN    ENGLISH    ENGRAVER    IN    PARIS. 

IT  is  a  curious  fact  —  and,  if  it  has  not  been 
already  recorded,  must  assuredly  have  been 
remarked  —  that  Fate  seems  always  to  pro- 
vide the  eminent  painter  with  his  special  and 
particular  interpreter  on  steel  or  copper.  Thus, 
around  Reynolds  are  the  great  mezzotinters, 
MacArdell,  Fisher,  Watson,  Valentine  Green. 
Gainsborough  has  his  nephew  Gainsborough 
Dupont ;  Constable  his  Lucas.  For  Wilson 
there  is  Woollett;  for  Stothard  there  are  Heath 
and  Finden.  To  come  to  later  days,  there  is 
Turner  with  his  Willmores  and  Goodalls,  and 
Landseer  with  his  brother  and  (no  pun  intended) 
his  Cousens.  Similarly,  for  Wilkie  (after  Bur- 
net),  the  born  translator  into  dot  and  line  seems 
to  have  been  Abraham  Raimbach.  It  was  Raim- 
bach  who  engraved  "The  Rent  Day,"  "  Blind 
Man's  Buff,"  "The  Village  Politicians,"  and 
the  majority  of  Sir  David's  chief  works,  and  it  is 
of  Raimbach  that  we  now  propose  to  speak. 
Concerning  his  work  as  a  craftsman,  these  pages 


An  English  Engraver  in  Paris.        145 

could  scarcely  be  expected  to  treat ;  and  his 
life,  the  life  of  a  man  occupied  continuously  in 
a  sedentary  pursuit,  and  residing,  like  Stothard, 
almost  entirely  in  one  place,  affords  but  little 
incident  to  invite  the  chronicler  of  the  pictur- 
esque. But  he  nevertheless  left  behind  him  a 
privately  printed  memoir,  of  which  a  portion  at 
least  is  not  without  its  interest,  —  the  interest 
attaching  to  every  truthful  record  of  occurrences 
which  time  has  pushed  backward  into  that  per- 
spective which  transforms  the  trivial.  In  1802 
he  went  to  Paris  for  a  couple  of  months.  The 
visits  of  foreigners  to  England  have  not  been 
unattractive  ;  and  the  visit  of  an  Englishman  to 
France,  shortly  after  the  Revolution,  may  also  — 
with  a  few  preliminary  words  as  to  the  tourist  — 
supply  its  memorabilia. 

Raimbach  was  born  on  February  16,  1776,  in 
Cecil  Court,  St.  Martin's  Lane,  Westminster, 
a  spot  remarkable  —  as  far  as  we  can  remember  — 
for  nothing  but  the  fact  that  Mrs.  Hogarth  mere 
had  died  there  some  forty  years  before.  His 
father  was  a  naturalised  Swiss  ;  his  mother  a 
Warwickshire  woman,  who  claimed  descent  from 
Richard  Burbage,  the  actor  of  Shakespeare's 
day.  His  childhood  was  uneventful,  save  for 
two  incidents.  One  of  these  was  his  falling, 
as  a  baby,  out  of  a  second-floor  window,  when 


146  Miscellanies. 

he  was  miraculously  "  ballooned  "  by  his  long- 
clothes  ;  the  other,  his  being  roused  as  a  little 
boy  of  four  by  the  roar  of  the  Gordon  rioters  as 
they  rushed  through  the  streets,  calling  to  the 
sleeping  inhabitants  to  light  up  their  windows. 
After  a  modest  education,  chiefly  at  the  Library 
School  of  St.  Martin's — where  Charles  Mathews 
the  Elder  was  his  schoolfellow,  and  Listen  after- 
wards held  a  post  as  master  —  he  was  formally 
apprenticed  to  Ravenefs  pupil,  John  Hall,  his- 
torical engraver  to  George  the  Third,  and  pop- 
ularly regarded  as  the  legitimate  successor  of 
Woollett.  Hall  was  a  man  of  more  than  ordi- 
nary cultivation,  one  of  whose  daughters  had 
married  the  composer  Stephen  Storace,  —  the 
Storace  who  wrote  the  music  to  Colman's 
"  Iron  Chest,"  and  (as  Raimbach  recollected) 
superintended  the  rehearsals  thereof  from  a 
sedan-chair,  in  which,  arrayed  in  flannels,  he 
was  carried  on  to  the  stage.  Hall  in  his  day 
had  been  introduced  to  Garrick  ;  and  he  was 
sometimes  visited  by  John  Kemble,  who  im- 
pressed the  young  apprentice  with  his  solemn 
and  sepulchral  enunciation,  and  his  manifest 
inability  to  forget,  even  in  private  life,  that  he 
was  not  before  the  footlights.  Another  remem- 
bered visitor  was  Sheridan,  nervously  solicitous 
lest  Hall,  who  was  engraving  his  portrait,  should 


An  English  Engraver  in  Paris.         147 

needlessly  emphasise  that  facial  "  efflorescence  " 
—  so  familiar  in  Gillray's  caricatures  —  which 
the  too-truthful  Sir  Joshua  had  neglected  to 
disguise. 

Sheridan,  however,  could  only  have  appeared 
occasionally  in  the  altitudes  of  Hall's  study. 
But  the  three  flights  which  ascended  to  it  were 
often  climbed  by  other  contemporaries.  Ben- 
jamin West  (whose  "  Cromwell  dissolving  the 
Long  Parliament"  Hall  engraved),  Opie  and 
Northcote,  Flaxman  and  Westall,  all  came  fre- 
quently on  business  and  pleasure,  while  the 
eclectic  arts  were  represented  by  George  Stee- 
vens  (the  Shakespeare  critic),  John  Ireland,  (the 
Hogarth  commentator),  and  Dibdin's  "  Quis- 
quilius,"  George  Baker,  the  print-collector  and 
laceman  of  St.  Paul's  Churchyard.  These,  with 
Storace  and  his  theatrical  circle,  must  have  made 
variety  enough  in  a  wearisome  craft  (for  Hall's 
larger  plates  were  many  months  in  hand),  and 
their  conversation  and  opinions  no  doubt  con- 
spired to  fill  the  young  apprentice  with  a  life- 
long interest  in  art  and  the  stage.  When  at 
length,  in  August,  1/96,  his  period  of  servitude 
came  to  an  end,  the  professional  outlook  was  by 
no  means  a  cheerful  one.  The  French  Revolu- 
tion was  engrossing  all  men's  thoughts,  and  the 
peaceful  arts  —  that  ars  longa  of  the  engraver  in 


148  Miscellanies. 

particular  —  were  at  their  lowest  ebb,  the  only 
patrons  of  prints  being  the  booksellers.  Young 
Raimbach's  first  definite  employment  was  on 
Cooke's  "Tales  of  the  Genii,"  a  task  which, 
it  may  be  added,  was  even  more  precarious  than 
usual,  inasmuch  as  it  was  Cooke's  custom,  by 
prearrangement,  not  to  pay  for  the  work  if  he 
did  not  approve  it  when  finished.  Fortunately, 
in  this  instance,  he  did  approve,  and  Raimbach 
continued  from  time  to  time  to  reproduce  for 
him  in  copper  the  designs  for  books  of  Thurston, 
the  elder  Corbould,  and  Madame  D'Arblay's 
clever  cousin,  Edward  Burney.  He  had  long 
been  an  assiduous  Royal  Academy  student,  and 
he  speedily  "doubled"  his  profession  by  min- 
iature-painting, in  which — "having,"  as  he 
modestly  says,  "some  facility  of  execution  and 
the  very  common  power  [?]  of  making  an  in- 
veterate likeness  "  (at  three  guineas  a  head)  — 
he  attained  considerable  success.  Then,  at  the 
end  of  1 80 1,  he  procured  a  commission  to  exe- 
cute three  plates  from  Smirke's  paintings  for 
Forster's  "  Arabian  Nights."  He  had  for  some 
time  been  lodging  with  a  French  modeller  in 
Charles  Street,  and  by  this  means  had  improved 
an  already  respectable  acquaintance  with  the 
French  language.  With  the  proceeds  of  his 
three  plates  in  his  pocket,  about  £70,  he  set 


An  English  Engraver  in  Paris.         149 

out   in   July,    1802,   for  a  fortnight's  visit   to 
Paris. 

The  short-lived  Peace  of  Amiens,  patched  up 
by  the  Addington  ministry,  had  been  signed  in 
the  preceding  March,  and  the  route  to  the  Con- 
tinent, closed  for  ten  or  twelve  years,  was  again 
open.     The  result  was  a  rush  across  the  Chan- 
nel of  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  Englishmen, 
eager  to   note   the   changes  resulting  from  the 
Revolution.      Among    these,   the    number    of 
painters    was    considerable,  —  West,     Turner, 
Flaxman,    Shee,  and  Opie    being  all  included. 
Securing  a  passport  from  the  Secretary  of  State's 
office  —  a  preliminary  precaution  which,  in  those 
days,  meant  an  outlay   of  £?.,<,$. —  Raimbach 
set  out  via  Brighton  and  Dieppe.     Competition, 
at  this  time,  had  reduced  the  coach  fare  to  the 
former  place  to  half  a  guinea  inside.     On  July 
9  he  embarked  for  Dieppe  in  a  little  vessel, 
landing  in  France  on  the  following  day  during 
a  glorious  sunrise,  but   drenched  to   the  skin. 
His  first  impressions  of  the   French  were  not 
unlike  those  of  Hogarth  fifty  years  before.    The 
filth  and  slovenliness  of  the  people,  the  number 
and   shameless  importunity  of  the  beggars,  the 
dragging   of   loaded  carts   and  the  bearing   of 
heavy  burdens  by  the  weaker  sex  —  all  these, 
with  the  brusque  revolutionary  manners  and  the 


150  Miscellanies. 

savage  sans-culottism  of  the  men,  were  things 
for  which  not  even  the  long  ear-pendants  and 
picturesque  Norman  caps  of  the  women  could 
entirely  atone.  From  Dieppe  the  traveller  pro- 
ceeded to  Rouen  in  a  ramshackle  cabriolet, 
drawn  by  two  ill-matched  but  wiry  horses  which 
went  better  than  they  looked.  At  Rouen  he 
arrived  in  time  for  a  bread  riot,  promptly  sup- 
pressed by  the  soldiery  ;  and  he  inspected  several 
churches,  among  others  St.  Maclou,  being  no 
doubt  attracted  thereto  by  the  famous  door- 
carvings  of  Jean  Goujon.  Then,  on  the  im- 
pjriale  of  a  diligence,  he  made  his  way  through 
the  delightful  landscape  of  Northern  France,  by 
Pontoise  and  St.  Denis,  "cemetery  of  mon- 
archs,"  to  Paris,  which  he  reached  on  the 
evening  of  the  I2th. 

At  Paris  he  took  up  his  quarters  in  that  "  dirt- 
iest and  noisiest  of  streets,"  the  Rue  Montor- 
gueil,  where,  twenty-two  years  before,  Beranger 
had  been  born.  Here  he  was  keenly  sensible 
of  those  exhalations  in  which  the  French  capital 
competed  with  the  "  Auld  Reekie  "  of  the  eigh- 
teenth-century, although,  in  this  instance,  they 
were  blended  and  complicated  with  another 
odour,  that  of  cookery.  But,  notwithstanding 
an  abhorrence  of  "evil  smells  "quite  equal  to 
that  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  he  speedily  became 


An  English  Engraver  in  Paris.         151 

acclimatised,  and  pleasantly  appreciative  of  the 
bright,  cheerful,  many-coloured  life  of  the  Pari- 
sian boulevards  and  the  social  attractions  of  the 
table  d'hdte.  In  the  capital,  too,  he  found  that 
the  people  were  less  brutal,  short-spoken,  and 
surly  than  in  the  provinces,  and  that  the  Revo- 
lution, which  had  disfigured  their  palaces  and 
monuments,1  had  not  wholly  effaced  their  tradi- 
tional politeness.  On  the  second  day  after  his 
arrival  took  place  the  annual  fetes  of  July  in 
memory  of  the  destruction  of  the  Bastille.  There 
were  to  be  reviews  and  illuminations,  fireworks 
on  the  Pont  Neuf,  dancing  and  mdts  de  cocagne 
in  the  Champs-Elysees  and  Place  Vend6me,  and 
free  plays  and  concerts  in  the  Tuileries  gardens. 
But  the  weather  was  finer  than  the  show.  "The 
fireworks  on  the  bridge  would  not  go  off;  the 
concert  in  the  garden  could  not  be  heard,  and 
the  illuminations,  though  in  good  taste,  were  not 
sufficiently  general  to  mark  a  decided  national 
feeling."  It  is  consoling  to  our  insular  self- 
esteem  that  neither  this  celebration,  nor  that  in- 
augurating Bonaparte  as  First  Consul,  which 
took  place  shortly  afterwards,  could  be  com- 

1  The  Tuileries  still  bore  the  words,  "dix  d'Aofit" 
painted  in  white  letters  wherever  the  cannon-balls  had 
struck.  Arthur  Moore  was  looking  on  (Journal,  1793, 
i.  26). 


1 5  2  Miscellanies. 

pared,  in  the  opinion  of  this  observer,  with  the 
Jubilee  of  George  the  Third,  or  the  Coronation 
of  George  the  Fourth,  at  both  of  which  he  sub- 
sequently assisted. 

He  was  naturally  anxious  to  get  a  glimpse  of 
the  famous  First  Consul,  but  of  this  he  had 
little  hope,  as  Bonaparte  seldom  appeared  in 
public  except  at  a  review  or  a  theatre,  and  in  the 
latter  case  always  without  previous  announce- 
ment. After  fruitless  attempts  to  see  the 
"modern  Attila  "  at  the  Opera  and  Theatre  Fran- 
cais,  Raimbach  was  at  length  fortunate  enough 
to  effect  his  object  at  an  inspection  of  the  garri- 
son of  Paris  in  the  Place  du  Carrousel,  where  he 
paid  six  francs  for  a  seat  at  a  first-floor  window. 
After  five-and-thirty  years  he  still  remembered 
vividly  the  small,  thin,  grave  figure,  —  in  the  blue 
unornamented  uniform,  plain  cocked  hat,  white 
pantaloons  and  jockey  boots, — which,  sur- 
rounded by  a  brilliant  staff  (among  whom  the 
Mameluke  Roustan  was  conspicuous  by  his 
eastern  costume),  rode  rapidly  down  the  lines 
at  a  hand-canter  on  Marengo,  made  a  brief 
speech  to  the  soldiers,  saluted  them  with  mili- 
tary formality,  and  then  passed  back  under  the 
archway  of  the  Tuileries.  Napoleon  at  this 
date  was  about  thirty-two.  Raimbach  never 
saw  him  again,  and  beyond  a  casual  inspection 


An  English  Engraver  in  Paris.         i$} 

of  the  ladies  of  the  Bonaparte  family  at  Notre 
Dame,  enjoyed  no  second  opportunity  of  study- 
ing the  ruling  race.  But  there  were  many  things 
of  compensating  interest.  At  the  Jardin  des 
Plantes,  for  instance,  there  was  an  enormous 
female  elephant,  which  had  been  transferred  by 
right  of  conquest  from  the  Stadtholder's  collec- 
tion at  the  Hague,  and  had  brought  its  English 
keeper  with  it  into  captivity.  Then  there  were 
the  noble  halls  and  galleries  of  the  Louvre, 
crowded  with  the  fruits  of  French  victories 
("  les  fruits  de  nos  victoires!  "),  statues  and 
pictures  of  all  countries,  and  all  exhibited  free 
of  charge  to  an  exultant  public.  The  Apollo 
Belvedere  from  the  Vatican  was  already  in- 
stalled, and  while  Raimbach  was  still  at  Paris 
arrived  the  famous  Venus  de'  Medici.  Prob- 
ably so  splendid  a  "loan  collection"  had  never 
before  been  brought  together. 

It  was  this  no  doubt  which  attracted  so  many 
English  artists  to  Paris,  where  French  spolia- 
tion enabled  them  to  study  comparatively  a  pic- 
torial collocation  which  nothing  but  the  Grand 
Tour  could  otherwise  have  presented  to  them. 
Here,  in  all  their  glory,  were  Rembrandt  and 
Rubens,  with  the  best  of  the  Dutch  and  Flemish 
schools.  Raphael's  glorious  ' '  Transfiguration  ;  " 
the  great  rival  altarpiece  of  Domenichino,  the 


i  $4  Miscellanies. 

"  Communion  of  St.  Jerome  ;  "  Correggio's 
"Marriage  of  St.  Catherine,"  —  all  these,  to- 
gether  with  many  of  the  choicest  specimens  of 
the  Carracci,  of  Guido,  of  Albano,  of  Guercino, 
were  at  this  time  to  be  seen  in  the  long  gallery 
of  the  Louvre,  which  Raimbach  not  only  visited 
frequently,  but  drew  in  almost  daily.  In  the 
magnificent  Hall  of  Antiques,  besides,  he  made 
the  acquaintance  of  more  than  one  contempo- 
rary French  painter.  Isabey,  the  miniaturist ; 
Carle  Vernet ;  his  greater  son,  Horace,  at  this 
time  a  bright  boy  of  thirteen  or  fourteen,  were 
all  then  living  in  apartments  adjoining  the  gal- 
leries, and  in  some  cases  at  Government  expense 
To  the  illustrious  leader  of  the  new  Imperio- 
Classical  School,  which  had  succeeded  with  its 
wide-striding  and  brickdust-coloured  nudities  to 
the  rosy  mignardises  of  Fragonard  and  Boucher, 
Raimbach  was  not,  however,  introduced.  M. 
Jacques  Louis  David,  whose  friendship  with 
Robespierre  had  not  only  acquainted  him  with 
the  interior  of  a  prison,  but  had  also  brought 
him  perilously  close  to  the  guillotine  itself,  was 
for  the  moment  living  in  prudent  seclusion, 
dividing  his  attentions  between  his  palette  and 
his  violoncello.  Meanwhile,  a  good  example  of 
his  manner,  "The  Sabines"  (which  Raimbach 
calls  "  Rape  of  the  Sabines"),  executed  imme- 


An  English  Engraver  in  Paris.         155 

diately  after  his  release  from  the  Luxembourg, 
and  popularly  supposed  to  allude  to  the  heroic 
efforts  which  Madame  David  had  made  for  her 
husband's  safety,  was  at  this  time  being  exhib- 
ited to  a  public  who  were  divided  between 
enthusiasm  for  the  subject  and  indignation  at  the 
door-money  —  door-money  apparently  having 
never  before  been  charged  for  showing  a  pic- 
ture. Of  David's  pupils  and  followers,  Gerard, 
Girodet,  Gros,  Gu6rin,  Ingres,  and  the  rest, 
Raimbach  also  speaks,  but,  as  in  the  case  of  the 
master  himself,  more  from  hearsay  than  personal 
experience.  On  the  other  hand,  one  of  his  own 
compatriots,  Benjamin  West,  the  favourite 
painter  of  George  the  Third 

(Of  modern  works  he  makes  a  jest 
Except  the  works  of  Mr.  West), 

was  very  much  en  Evidence  in  public  places.  He 
had  succeeded  Reynolds  as  President  of  the 
Royal  Academy,  and  the  diplomatic  French 
notabilities  were  doing  their  best  to  flatter  him 
into  the  belief  that  Bonaparte  was  not  only  the 
greatest  of  men  but  of  art  collectors.  Indeed, 
the  First  Consul  himself  favoured  this  idea  by 
personally  commending  West's  own  "  Death  on 
the  Pale  Horse,"  the  finished  sketch  of  which 
he  had  brought  with  him  from  England  to  ex- 


156  Miscellanies. 

hibit  at  the  Salon.  West,  whose  weakness  was 
"more  than  female  vanity,"  was  by  no  means 
backward  in  acknowledging  these  politic,  if  not 
perfidious,  attentions,  which  he  accepted  without 
suspicion.  "  Wherever  I  went,"  he  said  simply, 
"  people  looked  at  me,  and  ministers  and  men 
of  influence  in  the  State  were  constantly  in  my 
company.  I  was  one  day  in  the  Louvre  —  all 
eyes  were  upon  me,  and  I  could  not  help  ob- 
serving to  Charles  Fox,  who  happened  to  be 
walking  with  me,  how  strong  was  the  love  of  Art 
and  admiration  of  its  professors  in  France." 
Fox,  whose  reputation  as  an  orator  and  a  patriot 
had  preceded  him,  was  naturally  the  observed  of 
all  observers,  and  he  was  besides  the  object  of 
special  attentions  on  the  part  of  Bonaparte. 

Fox's  chief  mission  to  Paris,  according  to 
his  biographer,  Lord  Russell,  was  to  search  the 
archives  for  his  "  History  of  the  Revolution  of 
1688."  But  transcribing  the  correspondence 
of  Barillon  did  not  so  exclusively  occupy  him 
as  to  divert  him  from  the  charms  of  the  Theatre 
Francais,  or,  as  it  was  at  this  time  called,  the 
"Theatre  de  la  Re'publique."  Fox  went  fre- 
quently to  see  that  queen  of  tragedy  Mile. 
Duchesnois,  of  whom  it  was  said,  "  qu'elle 
avail  des  larmes  dans  la  voix."  a  He  saw  her 

1  Thackeray,   who  applies   this   to   Gay,  quotes  it  of 
Rubini. 


An  English  Engraver  in  Paris.         157 

in  "  Andromaque "  and  "  Phedre,"  and  as 
Roxane  in  "  Bajazet."  Raimbach  also,  as 
might  be  anticipated  from  the  schoolfellow  of 
Charles  Mathevvs  and  the  admirer  of  Kemble, 
did  not  neglect  the  French  theatres,  which, 
he  notes,  were  at  this  time  more  numerous 
than  in  all  the  other  capitals  of  Europe  put  to- 
gether. At  the  Grand  Opera,  then  rechristened 
"Theatre  de  la  Re'publique  et  des  Arts,"  he 
heard  the  opera  of  "  Anacre'on,"  in  which  the 
principal  male  singer  was  Francois  Lays,  or 
Lais,  and  the  foremost  female  that  Mile.  Maill- 
ard  to  whom  tradition  assigned  the  part  of  the 
Goddess  of  Reason  at  the  celebration  of  1793, 
which  celebration,  indeed,  had  been  arranged 
by  Lais  with  the  prophet  of  the  cult,  Chaumette. 
Raimbach,  however,  thought  little,  as  a  singer, 
of  the  lady,  who  had  just  succeeded  to  the 
place  of  her  preceptress,  the  accomplished  Mile. 
St.  Huberti,  who,  as  Countess  d'Entraigues, 
was  cruelly  murdered  with  her  husband  at 
Barnes  Terrace  some  few  years  later  by  an 
Italian  valet.1  But  he  was  charmed  with  the 
vocalisation  of  Lais,  and  delighted  with  the 
ballet,  which  included  the  elder  Vestris  ("  Diou" 

1  In  1812.  There  is  an  account  of  this  tragedy  in  the 
"  Walk  from  London  to  Kew  "  of  Sir  Richard  Phillips, 
1817. 


i  $8  Miscellanies. 

de  la  danse)  and  Mme.  Gardel.  In  particular 
the  young  engraver  remembered  an  English 
hornpipe,  executed  in  a  jockey's  dress  by  one 
Beaupre,  which  excelled  anything  of  the  kind 
he  had  ever  seen  in  his  own  country.  At  the 
Theatre  Frangais,  —  possibly  because  his  tastes 
lay  rather  in  comedy  than  tragedy,  —  Raimbach 
says  nothing  of  Racine  and  Mile.  Duchesnois. 
But  he  speaks  of  Monvel,  the  sole  survivor  of 
the  old  school  of  the  Lekains  and  Previlles  and 
Barons,  as  still  charming  in  spite  of  age  and  loss 
of  teeth ;  and  he  also  saw  that  practical  joker 
and  pet  of  the  Parisians,  Dugazon,  who  must 
have  been  almost  as  diminutive  as  Addison's 
"little  Dickey,"  Henry  Morris.1  But  after 
PreVille  he  was  the  prince  of  stage  valets, 
and  despite  a  tendency  to  exaggeration  (which 
Raimbach  duly  chronicles),  almost  perfect  in 
his  own  line.  Another  stage  luminary  men- 
tioned by  Raimbach  is  Monvel's  daughter, 
Mile.  Mars,  at  this  time  only  three-and-twenty, 

1  It  was  Dugazon  who  cajoled  the  original  Bartholo 
of  the  Earlier,  Desessarts  (who  was  enormously  fat),  into 
applying  for  the  post  of  elephant  to  the  Court.  When  the 
irate  Desessarts  afterwards  challenged  him,  Dugazon,  by 
gravely  chalking  a  circle  upon  his  adversary,  and  propos- 
ing that  all  punctures  outside  the  ring  should  count  for 
nothing,  turned  the  whole  affair  into  ridicule. 


An  English  Engraver  in  Paris.         159 

and  not  yet  displaying  those  supreme  quali- 
ties which  afterwards  made  her  unrivalled  in 
Europe.  But  she  was  already  seductive  as  an 
ingenue ;  and  her  performance  of  AngeTique  in 
"  La  Fausse  Agnes  "  of  NeYicault  Destouches 
(which  Arthur  Murphy  afterwards  borrowed  for 
his  farce  of  the  "  Citizen)/'  is  declared  by 
Raimbach  to  have  been  "  replete  with  grace 
and  good  taste."  Finally,  Raimbach  saw  the 
First  Consul's  tragedian,  Talma,  then  in  the 
height  of  his  powers,  and  continuing  success- 
fully those  reforms  of  costume  and  declamation 
which  he  was  supposed  to  have  learned  in 
England.  John  Kemble,  who  was  also  visiting 
Paris,  where  he  was  hospitably  entertained  by 
the  French  actors,  was  now  in  his  turn  taking 
hints  from  Talma,  for  it  was  observable  that 
when  he  got  back  to  London  he  adopted 
Talma's  costume  for  the  Orestes  of  the  "  Dis- 
tressed Mother." 

The  Italian  Opera,  of  course,  was  not  open, 
and  of  the  remaining  actors  Raimbach  says  not 
very  much.  At  the  Vaudeville  he  saw  Laporte, 
the  leading  harlequin  of  the  day,  and  at  Picart's 
Theatre  in  the  Rue  Feydeau  witnessed  what 
must  have  been  the  "Tom  Jones  a  Londres" 
of  M.  Desforges,  in  which  Picart  himself,  who 
was  a  better  author  than  actor,  took  the  part  of 


160  Miscellanies. 

the  so-called  "  Squire  Westiern."  This  repre- 
sentation, as  might  be  expected,  was  amusing 
for  its  absurdities  rather  than  its  merits.  But 
it  can  hardly  have  been  more  ridiculous  to  an 
Englishman  than  Poinsinet's  earlier  Com^die 
Lyrique,  where  Western  and  "  Tami  Jone" 
pursue  the  flying  hart  to  the  accompaniment  of 
cars  de  chasse  and  the  orthodox  French  hallali. 
Another  (unconsciously)  theatrical  exhibition 
which  Raimbach  occasionally  attended,  was  the 
Tribunal,  one  of  the  new  Legislative  bodies 
that  at  this  time  held  its  sittings  in  the  Palais 
Royal,  then,  on  that  account,  re-christened 
Palais  du  Tribunal.  Here  he  met  with  the 
notorious  Lewis  Goldsmith,  not,  as  afterwards, 
the  inveterale  assailant  of  Napoleon,  but  for 
the  moment  actively  engaged  in  editing  a  paper 
called  "  The  Argus  ;  or,  London  Reviewed  in 
Paris,'1  which  attacked  the  war  and  the  Eng- 
lish Government.  At  the  Tribunal  Goldsmith 
poinled  out  several  of  the  minor  men  of  the 
Revolution  to  Raimbach.  Bui  il  was  a  colour- 
less assembly,  wholly  in  the  power  of  the  im- 
perious First  Consul,  and  its  meetings  had  litlle 
inslruction  fora  stranger.  Goldsmith,  however, 
was  not  the  sole  compatriot  Raimbach  met  in 
the  Palais  Royal.  In  the  salons  litUraires  he 
came  frequently  in  contact  with  Thomas  Hoi- 


An  English  Engraver  in  Paris.        161 

croft,  of  the  "  Road  to  Ruin."  Holcroft  had 
married  a  French  wife,  had  a  family,  and  was 
engaged  in  preparing  those  "  Travels  in  France/' 
which  Sir  Richard  Phillips  afterwards  published. 
Holcroft  was  a  friend  of  Opie  (then  also  in 
Paris),  who  painted  the  portrait  of  him  now  at  St. 
Martin's  Place  ;  but  from  Raimbach's  account 
he  must  have  been  far  more  petulant  and  irri- 
table than  befitted  the  austere  philosopher  of  his 
writings.  Of  another  person  whom  Raimbach 
mentions  he  gives  a  rosier  account  than  is  given 
generally.  At  the  Cafe  Jacob  in  the  Rue 
Jacob,  an  obscure  cabaret  in  an  obscure  street, 
was  frequently  to  be  seen  the  once  redoubtable 
Thomas  Paine,  then  about  sixty-five.  Contem- 
poraries represent  him  at  this  date  as  not  only 
fallen  upon  evil  days,  but  dirty  in  his  person 
and  unduly  addicted  to  spirits.  That  the 
general  appearance  of  the  author  of  the  "  Rights 
of  Man"  was  "mean  and  poverty-stricken," 
and  that  he  was  "  much  withered  and  care- 
worn," Raimbach  admits,  and  he  moreover 
adds  that  "  he  had  sunk  into  complete  insignifi- 
cance, and  was  quite  unnoticed  by  the  Govern- 
ment." But  he  also  describes  him  as  "  fluent 
in  speech,  of  mild  and  gentle  demeanour,  clear 
and  distinct  in  enunciation,"  and  endowed  with 
an  "exceedingly  soft  and  agreeable  voice"  — 


1 62  Miscellanies. 

words  which,  in  this  connection,  somehow 
remind  one  of  Lord  Foppington's  philosophic 
eulogy  of  Miss  Hoyden.  Certainly  they 
scarcely  suggest  the  red-nosed  and  dilapidated 
personage  who  drank  brandy  and  declaimed 
against  Religion  in  his  cups  with  whom  modern 
records  have  acquainted  us. 

Raimbach's  remaining  experiences  must  be 
rapidly  summarised.  He  attended  the  Palais 
de  Justice,  and  was  much  impressed  by  the 
French  forensic  oratory.  Concerning  the  ora- 
tory of  the  pulpit  he  is  not  equally  enthusiastic, 
observing,  indeed,  that  he  should  think  the 
cause  of  religion  derived  little  support  from  the 
eloquence  of  the  clergy.  But  it  must  be  re- 
membered that  at  this  period  most  of  the  priests 
were  expatriated,  and  many  of  the  churches 
were  still  used  as  warehouses  and  stables.  One 
close  by  him  in  the  Rue  Montorgueil  was,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  employed  as  a  saddler's  shop.  He 
was  much  interested  in  the  now  dispersed  col- 
lection brought  together  in  the  Muse'e  des  Mon- 
uments in  the  Petits-Augustins  by  M.  Alexandre 
Lenoir,  the  artist  and  antiquary.  This  consisted 
of  such  monumental  efforts  as  had  escaped 
the  fury  of  the  Terror —  escaping,  it  should  be 
added,  only  miserably  mutilated  and  defaced. 
Lenoir,  who  had  received  a  severe  bayonet 


An  English  Engraver  in  Paris.         163 

wound  in  attempting  to  defend  the  tomb  of 
Richelieu,  had  admirably  arranged  these  waifs 
and  strays,  and  the  collection  of  eighteenth 
century  sculpture  was  especially  notable,  as  were 
also  the  specimens  of  stained  glass.  Among 
Raimbach's  personal  experiences  came  the  suc- 
cessful consumption  at  VeYy's  in  the  Palais 
Royal  of  a  fricassee  of  frogs.  But  this  was  done 
in  ignorance,  and  not  of  set  purpose,  as  in  the 
case  of  the  epicure,  Charles  Lamb,  who  speaks 
of  them  as  "  the  nicest  little  delicate  things." 
Raimbach's  return  to  England,  somewhat  precipi- 
tated by  the  fury  of  the  First  Consul  at  the  attacks 
upon  him  in  the  Morning  Chronicle,  was  made 
by  the  Picardy  route.  At  Calais  he  spent  a  day 
at  the  historical  Lion  d'Argent,1  where  Hogarth 
and  so  many  of  his  fellow  countrymen  had  been 
before  him,  and  he  reached  Dover  shortly  after- 
wards, giving,  with  his  party,  three  ringing  cheers 
at  once  more  treading  upon  English  soil.  He 
had  been  absent  two  months  instead  of  two 
weeks.  His  impressions  de  voyage,  which  oc- 
cupy nearly  half  his  "  Memoirs,"  would  have 
gained  in  permanent  charm  if  he  had  described 
more  and  reflected  less.  All  the  same,  his  trip 

l  Mrs.  Carter  (Memoirs,  i.  253)  says,  in  June,  1763: 
"  I  am  sorry  to  say  it,  but  it  is  fact,  that  the  Lion  d'Argent 
at  Calais  is  a  much  better  inn  than  any  I  saw  at  Dover." 


164  Miscellanies. 

to  Paris  as  a  young  man  in  1802  was  the  one 
event  of  his  career,  for  though  he  went  abroad 
again  on  two  or  three  occasions,  received  a  gold 
medal  from  the  Salon  in  1814,  for  his  engraving 
of  "The  Village  Politicians,"  was  fSted  by 
Baron  Gerard  in  1825,  and  made  a  Correspond- 
ing Member  of  the  Institute  ten  years  later,  the 
rest  of  his  recollections  are  comparatively  un- 
interesting, except  for  his  intercourse  with 
Wilkie,  of  whom  he  wrote  a  brief  biography. 
He  died  in  January,  1843,  in  his  sixty-seventh 
year. 


THE  "VICAR  OF  WAKEFIELD"  AND 
ITS    ILLUSTRATORS. 

NOT  many  years  since,  &  propos  of  a  certain 
volume  of  epistolary  parodies,  the  para- 
graphists  were  busily  discussing  the  different 
aspects  which  the  characters  of  fiction  present 
to  different  readers.  It  was  shown  that,  not 
only  as  regards  the  fainter  and  less  strongly 
drawn  figures,  —  the  Frank  Osbaldistones,  the 
Clive  Newcomes,  the  David  Copperfields, — 
but  even  as  regards  what  Gautier  would  have 
called  "  the  grotesques,"  —  the  Costigans,  the 
Swivellers,  the  Gamps, — each  admirer,  in  his 
separate  "  study  of  imagination,"  had  his  own 
idea,  which  was  not  that  of  another.  What  is 
true  of  the  intellectual  perception  is  equally  true 
of  the  pictorial.  Nothing  is  more  notable  than 
the  diversities  afforded  by  the  same  book  when 
illustrated  by  different  artists.  Contrast  for  a 
moment  the  Don  Quixotes  of  Smirke,  of  Tony 
Johannot,  of  Gustave  Dore"  ;  contrast  the  Fal- 
staffs  of  Kenny  Meadows,  of  Sir  John  Gilbert, 


1 66  Miscellanies. 

of  Mr.  Edwin  A.  Abbey.  Or,  to  take  a  better 
instance,  compare  the  contemporary  illustrations 
of  Dickens  with  the  modern  designs  of  (say) 
Charles  Green  or  Frederick  Barnard.  The 
variations,  it  will  at  once  be  manifest,  are  not 
the  mere  variations  arising  from  ampler  resource 
or  from  fuller  academic  skill  on  the  part  of  the 
younger  men.  It  is  not  alone  that  they  have 
conquered  the  inner  secret  of  Du  Maurier's 
artistic  stumbling-blocks  —  the  irreconcilable 
chimney-pot  hat,  the  "  terrible  trousers,"  the 
unspeakable  evening  clothes  of  the  Victorian 
era  :  it  is  that  their  point  of  view  is  different. 
Nay,  in  the  case  of  Barnard,  one  of  the  first,  if 
not  the  first,  of  modern  humorous  designers, 
although  he  is  studiously  loyal  to  the  Dickens 
tradition  as  revealed  by  "Phiz"  and  Cruik- 
shank,  he  is  at  the  same  time  as  unlike  them  as 
it  is  well  possible  to  be.  To  this  individual  and 
personal  attitude  of  the  artist  must  be  added, 
among  other  things,  the  further  fact  that  each 
age  has  a  trick  of  investing  the  book  it  decorates 
with  something  of  its  own  temperament  and  at- 
mosphere. It  may  faithfully  endeavour  to  revive 
costume  ;  it  may  reproduce  accessory  with  the 
utmost  care  ;  but  it  can  never  look  with  the  old 
eyes,  or  see  exactly  in  the  old  way.  Of  these 
positions,  the  "  Vicar  of  Wakefield  "  is  as  good 


The  "Vicar  of  Wake  field"          167 

an  example  as  any.  Between  its  earlier  illus- 
trated editions  and  those  of  the  last  half  century 
the  gulf  is  wide ;  while  the  portraits  of  Dr. 
Primrose  as  presented  by  Rovvlandson  on  the 
one  hand  and  Stothard  on  the  other  are  as  strik- 
ingly in  contrast  as  any  of  the  cases  above  indi- 
cated. We  shall  add  what  is  practically  a  fresh 
chapter  to  a  hackneyed  history  if  for  a  page  or 
two  we  attempt  to  give  some  account  of  Gold- 
smith's story  considered  exclusively  in  its  aspect 
as  an  illustrated  book. 

To  the  first  edition  of  1766  there  were  no 
illustrations.  The  two  duodecimo  volumes  "on 
grey  paper  with  blunt  type,"  printed  at  Salis- 
bury in  that  year  "by  B.  Collins,  for  F.  New- 
bery,"  were  without  embellishments  of  any  kind  ; 
and  the  sixth  issue  of  1779  had  been  reached  be- 
fore we  come  to  the  earliest  native  attempt  at 
any  pictorial  realisation  of  the  characters.  In 
the  following  year  appeared  the  first  illustrated 
English  edition,  being  two  tiny  booklets  bearing 
the  imprint  of  one  J.  Wenman,  of  144  Fleet 
Street,  and  containing  a  couple  of  poorly-exe- 
cuted frontispieces  by  the  miniaturist,  Daniel 
Dodd.  They  represent  the  Vicar  taking  leave 
of  George,  and  Olivia  and  the  Landlady  —  a 
choice  of  subjects  in  which  the  artist  had  many 
subsequent  imitators.  The  designs  have  little 


1 68  Miscellanies. 

distinction  but  that  of  priority,  and  can  claim  no 
higher  merit  than  attaches  to  the  cheap  adorn- 
ments of  a  cheap  publication.  Dodd  is  seen  to 
greater  advantage  in  one  of  the  two  plates 
which,  about  the  same  date,  figured  in  Harri- 
son's "  Novelist's  Magazine,"  and  also  in  the 
octavo  edition  of  the  "  Vicar,"  printed  for  the 
same  publisher  in  1781.  These  plates  have 
the  pretty  old-fashioned  ornamental  framework 
which  the  elder  Heath  and  his  colleagues  had 
borrowed  from  the  French  vignettists.  Dodd 
illustrates  the  episode  of  the  pocket-book,  while 
his  companion  Walker,  at  once  engraver  and 
designer,  selects  the  second  rescue  of  Sophia  at 
the  precise  moment  when  BurchelFs  "great 
stick"  has  shivered  the  small  sword  of  Mr. 
Timothy  Baxter.  Walker's  design  is  the  better 
of  the  two  ;  but  their  main  interest  is  that  of 
costume-pieces,  and  in  both  the  story  is  told  by 
gesture  rather  than  by  expression. 

So  natural  is  it  to  associate  the  grace  of 
Stothard  with  the  grace  of  Goldsmith,  that  one 
almost  resents  the  fact  that,  in  the  collection  for 
which  he  did  so  much,  the  task  of  illustrating  the 
"  Vicar  "  fell  into  other  hands.  But  as  his  first  re- 
lations with  Harrison's  "  Magazine"  are  alleged 
to  have  originated  in  an  application  made  to  him 
to  correct  a  drawing  by  Dodd  for  "  Joseph 


The  "Vicar  of  Wake  field"  169 

Andrews,"1  it  is  probable  that,  before  he  began 
to  work  regularly  for  the  publisher,  the  plates 
for  the  "  Vicar  "  had  already  been  arranged  for. 
Yet  it  was  not  long  before  he  was  engaged  upon 
the  book.  In  1792*  was  published  an  octavo 
edition,  the  plates  of  which  were  beautifully  en- 
graved by  Basire's  pupil  and  Blake's  partner, 
James  Parker.  Stothard's  designs,  six  in  num- 
ber, illustrate  the  Vicar  taking  leave  of  George, 
the  Rescue  of  Sophia  from  Drowning,  the  Honey- 
suckle Arbour,  the  Vicar  and  Olivia,  the  Prison 
Sermon,  and  the  Family  Party  at  the  end.  The 
best  of  them,  perhaps,  is  that  in  which  Olivia's 
father,  with  an  inexpressible  tenderness  of  ges- 
ture, lifts  the  half-sinking,  half-kneeling  form  of 
his  repentant  daughter.  But  though  none  can 
be  said  to  be  wanting  in  that  grace  which  is  the 
unfailing  characteristic  of  the  artist,  upon  the 
whole  they  are  not  chefs-d'oeuvre.  Certainly 
they  are  not  as  good  as  the  best  of  the  "  Clar- 
issa'1 series  in  Harrison;  they  are  not  even 
better  than  the  illustrations  to  Sterne,  the  origi- 
nals of  which  are  at  South  Kensington.  In- 

1  Pye's  "Patronage  of  British  Art,"  1845,  PP-  247-8. 

2  An  imaginary  frontispiece  portrait  of  the  Vicar,  pre- 
fixed to  a  one-volume  issue  of  1790,  has  not  been  here 
regarded  as  entitling  the  book  to  rank  as  an  "  illustrated  " 
edition.     There  is  no  artist's  name  to  the  print. 


1 70  Miscellanies. 

deed,  there  is  at  South  Kensington  a  circular 
composition  by  Stothard  from  the  "  Vicar"  —  a 
lightly-washed  sketch  in  Indian  ink  —  which 
surpasses  them  all.  The  moment  selected  is  ob- 
scure ;  but  the  persons  represented  are  plainly 
the  Wakefield  family,  Sir  William  Thornhill  and 
the  'Squire.  The  'Squire  is  speaking,  Olivia 
hides  her  face  in  her  mother's  lap,  Dr.  Prim- 
rose listens  with  bent  head,  and  the  ci-devant 
Mr.  Burchell  looks  sternly  at  his  nephew.  The 
entire  group,  which  is  admirable  in  refinement 
and  composition,  has  all  the  serene  gravity  of  a 
drawing  by  Flaxman.  Besides  the  above,  and 
a  pair  of  plates  to  be  mentioned  presently, 
Stothard  did  a  set  of  twenty-four  minute  head- 
pieces to  a  Memorandum  Book  for  1805  (or 
thereabouts),  all  of  which  were  derived  from 
Goldsmith's  novel,  and  these  probably  do  not 
exhaust  his  efforts  in  this  direction. 

After  the  Stothard  of  1792  comes  a  succession 
of  editions  more  or  less  illustrated.  In  1793 
Cooke  published  the  "Vicar"  in  his  "Select 
Novels,"  with  a  vignette  and  plate  by  R.  Cor- 
bould,  and  a  plate  by  Anker  Smith.  The  last, 
which  depicts  "  Olivia  rejecting  with  disdain  the 
offer  of  a  Purse  of  Money  from  'Squire  Thorn- 
hill,"  is  not  only  a  dainty  little  picture,  but 
serves  to  exemplify  some  of  the  remarks  at  the 


The  "Vicar  of  Wakefield."  171 

outset  of  this  paper.  Seven-and-twenty  years 
later,  the  same  design  was  re-engraved  as  the 
frontispiece  of  an  edition  published  by  Dean  and 
Munday,  and  the  costumes  were  modernised  to 
date.  The  'Squire  Thornhill  of  1793  has  a  three- 
cornered  hat  and  ruffles  ;  in  1820  he  wears 
whiskers,  a  stiff  cravat  with  a  little  collar,  and 
a  cocked  hat  set  athwartships.  Olivia,  who  dis- 
dained him  in  1793  in  a  cap  and  sash,  disdains 
him  in  1820  in  her  own  hair  and  a  high  waist. 
Corbould's  illustrations  to  these  volumes  are 
commonplace.  But  he  does  better  in  the  five 
plates  which  he  supplied  to  Whittingham's  edi- 
tion of  1800,  three  of  which,  the  Honeysuckle 
Arbour,  Moses  starting  on  his  Journey,  and 
Olivia  and  the  Landlady,  are  pleasant  enough. 
In  1808  followed  an  edition  with  a  charming 
frontispiece  by  Stothard,  in  which  the  Vicar 
with  his  arm  in  a  sling  is  endeavouring  to  recon- 
cile Mrs.  Primrose  to  Olivia.  There  is  also  a 
vignette  by  the  same  hand.  These,  engraved  at 
first  by  Heath,  were  repeated  in  1813  by  J. 
Romney.  In  the  same  year  the  book  appeared 
in  the  "  Mirror  of  Amusement "  with  three 
plates  by  that  artistic  Jack-of-all-trades,  William 
Marshall  Craig,  sometime  drawing-master  to  the 
Princess  Charlotte  of  Wales.  There  are  also  edi- 
tions in  1812,  1823,  and  1824,  with  frontispieces 


172  Miscellanies. 

by  the  Academician,  Thomas  Uwins.  But,  as 
an  interpreter  of  Goldsmith,  the  painter  of  the 
once-popular  "  Chapeau  de  Brigand "  is  not 
inspiriting. 

In  following  the  line  of  engravers  on  copper, 
soon  to  be  superseded  by  steel,  we  have  ne- 
glected the  sister  art  of  engraving  upon  wood, 
of  which  the  revival  is  practically  synchronous 
with  Harrison's  "  Magazine."  The  first  edition 
of  the  "Vicar"  decorated  with  what  Horace 
Walpole  contemptuously  called  "  wooden  cuts," 
is  dated  1798.  It  has  seven  designs,  three  of 
which  are  by  an  unknown  person  called  Egin- 
ton,  and  the  remainder  by  Thomas  Bewick,  by 
whom  all  of  them  are  engraved.  Eginton  may 
be  at  once  dismissed  ;  but  Bewick's  own  work, 
notwithstanding  his  genuine  admiration  for 
Goldsmith,  arouses  no  particular  enthusiasm. 
He  was  too  original  to  be  the  illustrator  of  other 
men's  ideas,  and  his  designs,  though  fair  speci- 
mens of  his  technique  as  a  xylographer,  are  poor 
as  artistic  conceptions.  The  most  successful  is 
the  Procession  to  Church,  the  stubbornness  of 
Blackberry,  as  may  be  imagined,  being  effec- 
tively rendered.  Frontispieces  by  Bewick  also 
appear  in  editions  of  1810  and  1812;  and  be- 
tween 1807  and  1810  the  records  speak  of  three 
American  issues  with  woodcuts  by  Bewick's 


The  "Vicar  of  Wake  field"  173 

trans-Atlantic  imitator,  Alexander  Anderson. 
Whether  these  were  or  were  not  merely  copies 
of  Bewick,  like  much  of  Anderson's  work,  can- 
not be  affirmed  without  inspection.  Nor,  for 
the  same  reason,  is  it  possible  to  refer  with 
certainty  to  the  edition  illustrated  by  Thurston 
and  engraved  by  Bewick's  pupil,  Luke  Clennell, 
of  which  Linton  speaks  in  his  "  Masters  of 
Wood  Engraving  "  as  containing  a  "  '  Mr.  Bur- 
chell  in  the  hayfield  reading  to  the  two  Primrose 
girls,'  full  of  drawing  and  daylight,"  which 
should  be  worth  seeing.  But  the  triumph  of 
woodcut  copies  at  this  date  is  undoubtedly  the 
so-called  "  Whittingham's  edition"  of  1815. 
This  is  illustrated  by  thirty-seven  woodcuts  and 
tailpieces  engraved  by  the  prince  of  modern 
wood-engravers,  John  Thompson.  The  artist's 
name  has  been  modestly  withheld,  and  the  de- 
signs are  sometimes  attributed  to  Thurston,  but 
they  are  not  entirely  in  his  manner,  and  we  are 
inclined  to  assign  them  to  Samuel  Williams.  In 
any  case,  they  are  unpretending  little  pieces, 
simple  in  treatment,  and  sympathetic  in  char- 
acter. The  Vicar  Consoled  by  his  Little  Boys, 
and  the  Two  Girls  and  the  Fortune-teller,  may 
be  cited  as  favourable  examples.  But  the 
scale  is  too  small  for  much  play  of  expression. 
"  Whittingham's  edition  "  was  very  popular,  and 


174  Miscellanies. 

copies  are  by  no  means  rare.  It  was  certainly 
republished  in  1822  and  1825,  and  probably 
there  are  other  issues.  And  so  we  come  to  that 
most  extraordinary  of  contributions  by  a  popu- 
lar designer  to  the  embellishment  of  a  popular 
author,  the  "  Vicar"  of  Thomas  Rowlandson. 

Rowlandson  was  primarily  a  caricaturist,  and 
his  "  Vicar"  is  a  caricature.  He  was  not  with- 
out artistic  power  ;  he  could,  if  he  liked,  draw  a 
beautiful  woman  (it  is  true  that  his  ideal  generally 
deserves  those  epithets  of  "  plantureux,  luxuri- 
ant, exuberant"  which  the  painter  in  "  Gerfaut  " 
gives  to  the  charms  of  Mile.  Reine  Gobillot)  ; 
but  he  did  not  care  to  modify  his  ordinary  style. 
Consequently  he  illustrated  Goldsmith's  master- 
piece as  he  illustrated  Combe's  "  Doctor  Syn- 
tax," and  the  result  is  a  pictorial  outrage.  The 
unhappy  Primrose  family  romp  through  his 
pages,  vulgarised  by  all  sorts  of  indignities,  and 
the  reader  reaches  the  last  of  the  "  twenty-four 
coloured  plates  "  which  Ackermann  put  forth  in 
1817,  and  again  in  1823,  as  one  escaping  from 
a  nightmare.  It  is  only  necessary  to  glance  at 
Stothard's  charming  little  plate  of  Hunt  the 
Slipper  in  Rogers's  "  Pleasures  of  Memory"  of 
1802  to  see  how  far  from  the  Goldsmith  spirit 
is  Rowlandson's  treatment  of  the  same  pastime. 
Where  he  is  most  endurable,  is  where  his  de- 


The  "Vicar  of  Wakefield."  175 

signs  to  the  "Vicar"  have  the  least  relation 
to  the  personages  of  the  book,  as,  for  example, 
in  "  A  Connoisseur  Mellowing  the  Tone  of  a 
Picture,"  which  is  simply  a  humorous  print 
neither  better  nor  worse  than  any  of  the  other 
humorous  prints  with  which  he  was  wont  to  fill 
the  windows  of  the  "  Repository  of  Arts"  in 
Piccadilly. 

It  is  a  relief  to  turn  from  the  rotundities  of 
Rowlandson  to  the  edition  which  immediately 
followed  —  that  known  to  collectors  as  Sharpe's. 
It  contains  five  illustrations  by  Richard  Westall, 
engraved  on  copper  by  Corbould,  Warren, 
Romney,  and  others.  Westall's  designs  are  of 
the  school  of  Stothard  —  that  is  to  say,  they  are 
graceful  and  elegant  rather  than  humorous ; 
but  they  are  most  beautifully  rendered  by  their 
engravers.  The  Honeysuckle  Arbour  (George 
Corbould),  where  the  girls  lean  across  the  table 
to  watch  the  labouring  stag  as  it  pants  past, 
is  one  of  the  most  brilliant  little  pictures  we 
can  remember.  In  1829,  William  Finden  re- 
engraved  the  whole  of  these  designs  on  steel, 
slightly  reducing  them  in  size,  and  the  merits 
of  the  two  methods  may  be  compared.  It  is 
hard  to  adjudge  the  palm.  Finden's  fifth  plate 
especially,  depicting  Sophia's  return  to  the  Vicar 
in  Prison,  is  a  miracle  of  executive  delicacy. 


176  Miscellanies. 

Goldsmith's  next  illustrators  of  importance 
are  Cruikshank  and  Mulready.  The  contribu- 
tions of  the  former  are  limited  to  two  plates 
for  vol.  x.  (1832)  of  Roscoe's  "  Novelist's 
Library."  They  are  not  successes.  The  kindly 
Genius  of  Broadgrin  is  hardly  as  coarse  as 
Rowlandson,  but  his  efforts  to  make  his  subjects 
"  comic"  at  all  hazards  are  not  the  less  disas- 
trous, and  there  is  little  of  the  Vicar,  or  Mrs. 
Primrose,  or  even  Moses,  in  the  sketch  with 
which  he  illustrates  the  tragedy  of  the  gross 
of  green  spectacles  ;  while  the  most  salient 
characteristic  of  the  somewhat  more  successful 
Hunt  the  Slipper  is  the  artist's  inveterate  ten- 
dency to  make  the  waists  of  his  women  (in  the 
words  of  Pope's  imitation  of  Prior),  "  fine  by 
defect,  and  delicately  weak."  Mulready's  de- 
signs (1843),  excellently  interpreted  by  John 
Thompson,  have  a  far  greater  reputation, — a 
reputation  heightened  not  a  little  by  the  familiar 
group  of  pictures  which  he  elaborated  from 
three  of  the  sketches.  Choosing  the  Wedding 
Gown,  the  Whistonian  Controversy,  and  Sophia 
and  Burchell  Haymaking,  with  their  unrivalled 
rendering  of  texture  and  material,  are  among 
the  painter's  most  successful  works  in  oil ;  and 
it  is  the  fashion  to  speak  of  his  illustrated 
"  Vicar"  as  if  all  of  its  designs  were  at  the 


The  "Vicar  of  Wakefield."  177 

same  artistic  level.  This  is  by  no  means  the 
case.  Some  of  them,  e.g.,  Olivia  measuring 
herself  with  the  'Squire,  have  playfulness  and 
charm,  but  the  majority,  besides  being  crowded 
in  composition,  are  heavy  and  unattractive. 
Mulready's  paintings,  however,  and  the  gener- 
ally diffused  feeling  that  the  domestic  note  in 
his  work  should  make  him  a  born  illustrator  of 
Goldsmith,  have  given  him  a  prestige  which  can- 
not now  be  gainsaid. 

After  Mulready  follows  a  crowd  of  minor 
illustrators.  One  of  the  most  successful  of 
these  was  the  clever  artist  George  Thomas ; 
one  of  the  most  disappointing,  because  his  gifts 
were  of  so  high  an  order,  was  G.  J.  Pinwell. 
Of  Absolon,  Anelay,  Gilbert,  and  the  rest,  it  is 
impossible  to  speak  here,  and  we  must  close 
this  rapid  summary  with  brief  reference  to  some 
of  the  foreign  editions. 

At  the  beginning  of  this  paper,  in  enumerat- 
ing certain  of  the  causes  for  the  diversities, 
pleasing  or  otherwise,  which  prevail  in  illus- 
trated copies  of  the  classics,  we  purposely  re- 
served one  which  it  is  more  convenient  to  treat 
in  connection  with  those  books  when  "embel- 
lished" by  foreign  artists.  If,  even  in  the 
country  of  birth,  each  age  (as  has  been  well 
said  of  translations)  "  a  eu  de  ce  cdtt  son  belve"~ 

12 


178  Miscellanies. 

dere  different"  it  follows  that  every  other  coun- 
try will  have  its  point  of  view,  which  will  be  at 
variance  with  that  of  a  native.  To  say  that  no 
book  dealing  with  human  nature  in  the  abstract 
Is  capable  of  being  adequately  illustrated  except 
in  the  country  of  its  origin,  would  be  to  state 
a  proposition  in  imminent  danger  of  prompt 
contradiction.  But  it  may  be  safely  asserted, 
that,  except  by  an  artist  who,  from  long  resi- 
dence or  familiarity,  has  enjoyed  unusual  facili- 
ties for  assimilating  the  national  atmosphere,  no 
novel  of  manners  (to  which  class  the  "Vicar" 
must  undoubtedly  be  held  to  belong)  can  be 
illustrated  with  complete  success  by  a  foreigner. 
For  this  reason,  it  will  not  be  necessary  here  to 
do  more  than  refer  briefly  to  the  principal  French 
and  German  editions.  In  either  country  the 
"  Vicar  "has  had  the  advantage  of  being  artisti- 
cally interpreted  by  draughtsmen  of  marked 
ability  ;  but  in  both  cases  the  solecisms  are 
thicker  than  the  beauties. 

It  must  be  admitted,  notwithstanding,  for 
Germany,  that  it  was  earlier  in  the  field  than 
England.  Wenman's  edition  is  dated  1780  ;  but 
it  was  in  1776  that  August  Mylius  of  Berlin 
issued  the  first  frontispiece  of  the  "  Vicar."  It 
is  an  etching  by  the  "  Berlin  Hogarth,"  Daniel 
Chodowiecki,  prefixed  to  an  English  reprint  of 


The  "  Vicar  of  Wake  field."  179 

the  second  edition,  and  it  represents  the  popular 
episode  of  Mr.  Burchell  and  the  pocket-book. 
The  poor  Vicar  is  transformed  into  a  loose- 
lipped,  heavy-jowled  German  pastor  in  a  dress- 
ing-gown and  slippers,  while  Mr.  Burchell 
becomes  a  slim  personage  in  top-boots,  and 
such  a  huntsman's  cap  as  stage  tradition  assigns 
to  Tony  Lumpkin.  In  the  "  Almanac  Gdnea- 
logique  "  for  1777,  Chodowiecki  returned  to  this 
subject,  and  produced  a  series  of  twelve  charm- 
ing plates  —  little  marvels  of  delicate  execution 
—  upon  the  same  theme.  Some  of  these,  e.  g., 
the  "  Conversation  brillante  des  Dames  de  la 
ville"  and  "  George  sur  le  Teatre  (sic)  recon- 
noit  son  Pere  "  —  are  delightfully  quaint.  But 
they  are  not  illustrations  of  the  text  — and  there 
is  no  more  to  say.  The  same  radical  objection 
applies  to  the  illustrations,  full  of  fancy,  inge- 
nuity, and  playfulness  as  they  are,  of  another 
German,  Ludwig  Richter.  His  edition  has 
often  been  reprinted.  But  it  is  sufficient  to 
glance  at  his  barefooted  Sophia,  making  hay, 
with  her  straw  hat  at  her  back,  in  order  to  de- 
cide against  it.  One  crosses  out  "Sophia" 
and  writes  in  "  Frederika."  She  may  have 
lived  at  Sesenheim,  but  never  at  Wakefield.  In 
like  manner,  the  insular  mind  recoils  from  the 
spectacle  of  the  patriarchal  Jenkinson  studying 


180  Miscellanies. 

the  Cosmogony  in  company  with  a  tankard  of  a 
pattern  unmistakably  Teutonic. 

In  France,  to  judge  by  certain  entries  in 
Cohen's  invaluable  "Guide  de  TAmateur  de 
Livres  a  Vignettes,"  the  book  seems  to  have 
been  illustrated  as  early  as  the  end  of  the  last 
century.  Huot  and  Texier  are  mentioned  as 
artists,  but  their  works  have  escaped  us.  The 
chief  French  edition,  however,  is  that  which  be- 
longs to  the  famous  series  of  books  with  "  images 
incruste"es  en  plein  texte  "  (as  Jules  Janin  says), 
inaugurated  in  183$  by  the  "  Gil  Bias  "  of  Jean 
Gigoux.  The  "  Vicaire  de  Wakefield  "  (Bour- 
gueleret,  1838),  admirably  paraphrased  by 
Charles  Nodier,  was  accompanied  by  ten  en- 
gravings on  steel  by  William  Finden  after  Tony 
Johannot,  and  a  number  of  small  woodcuts,  en- 
t£tes  and  culs-de-lampe  by  Janet  Lange,  Charles 
Jacque,  and  C.  Marville.1  As  compositions, 
J  channel's  contributions  are  effective,  but  highly 
theatrical,  while  his  types  are  frankly  French. 
Of  the  woodcuts  it  may  be  sufficient  to  note 
that  when  the  Vicar  and  Mrs.  Primrose  discuss 
the  prospects  of  the  family  in  the  privacy  of  their 
own  chamber,  they  do  so  (in  the  picture)  from 
two  separate  four-posters  with  twisted  uprights, 

1  To  the  edition  of  1843,  which  does  not  contain  these 
woodcuts,  is  added  one  by  Meissonier. 


The  "  Vicar  of  Wakefield."  181 

and  a  crucifix  between  them.  The  same  eccen- 
tricities, though  scarcely  so  naively  ignorant, 
are  not  entirely  absent  from  the  work  of  two 
much  more  modern  artists,  M.  V.  A.  Poirson 
and  M.  Adolphe  Lalauze.  M.  Poirson  (Quan- 
tin,  1885)  who,  in  his  own  domain,  has  extraor- 
dinary skill  as  a  decorative  artist,  depicts  'Squire 
Thornhill  as  a  gay  young  French  chasseur  with 
many-buttoned  gaiters  and  a  fusil  en  bandouliere, 
while  the  hero  of  the  "  Elegy  on  a  Mad  Dog  " 
appears  in  those  "  wooden  shoes"  (with  straw 
in  them)  which  for  so  long  a  period  were  to 
English  cobblers  the  chief  terror  of  a  French 
invasion.  M.  Lalauze  again  (Jouaust,  1888), 
for  whose  distinguished  gifts  (in  their  place)  we 
have  the  keenest  admiration,  promotes  the  whole 
Wakefield  family  into  the  haute  noblesse.  An 
elegant  Dr.  Primrose  blesses  an  elegant  George 
with  the  air  of  a  Rochefoucauld,  while  Mrs. 
Primrose,  in  the  background,  with  the  Bible  and 
cane,  is  a  grande  dame.  Under  the  same  treat- 
ment, the  scene  in  the  hayfield  becomes  a  fele 
galante  after  the  fashion  of  Lancret  or  Watteau. 
Upon  the  whole,  dismissing  foreign  artists  for 
the  reason  given  above,  one  is  forced  to  the  con- 
clusion that  Goldsmith  has  not  hitherto  found 
his  fitting  pictorial  interpreter.  Stothard  and 
Mulready  have  accentuated  his  graver  side  ; 


1 82  Miscellanies. 

Cruikshank  and  Rowlandson  have  exaggerated 
his  humour.  But  no  single  artist  in  the  past,  as 
far  as  we  are  aware,  has,  in  any  just  proportion, 
combined  them  both.  By  the  delicate  quality 
of  his  art,  by  the  alliance  in  his  work  of  a  sim- 
plicity and  playfulness  which  has  a  kind  of  par- 
allel in  Goldsmith's  literary  style,  the  late 
Randolph  Caldecott  seemed  always  to  suggest 
that  he  could,  if  he  would,  supply  this  want. 
But,  apart  from  the  captivating  play-book  of  the 
"  Mad  Dog,"  and  a  frontispiece  in  the  "  Parch- 
ment Library,"  Caldecott  contributed  nothing  to 
the  illustration  of  Goldsmith's  novel.1 

1  The  foregoing  paper,  which  appeared  in  the  "  Eng- 
lish Illustrated  Magazine,"  for  October,  1890,  was  after- 
wards reprinted  as  the  Preface  to  Mr.  Hugh  Thomson's 
admirable  illustrated  edition  of  the  "  Vicar  "  (Macmillan, 
same  year). 


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OLD   WHITEHALL. 

NOW,  when  the  widening  of  Parliament 
Street  promises  to  afford  an  adequate 
approach  to  St.  Stephen's,  and  another  imposing 
range  of  buildings  has  arisen  at  Spring  Gardens 
to  match  the  Foreign  and  India  Offices,  it  may 
be  worth  while  to  linger  for  a  moment  upon 
some  former  features  of  this  much-changing 
locality.  In  such  a  retrospect,  the  Old  Banquet- 
ing-House  of  Inigo  Jones  naturally  becomes  a 
prominent  object.  Its  massive  Northamptonshire 
stone  and  classic  columns  invest  it  with  a  dignity 
of  which  the  towering  pile  of  Whitehall  Court 
can  scarcely  deprive  it ;  and  it  seems  to  overlook 
Kent's  stumpy  Horse  Guards  opposite  much  as 
a  nobleman  with  a  pedigree  might  be  expected 
to  survey  a  neighbour  of  a  newer  creation. 
And  yet,  impressive  though  it  is,  it  represents 
but  an  insignificant  portion  of  the  architect's 
original  design,  the  imaginative  extent  of  which 
may  be  studied  in  Campbell's  "  Vitruvius  Britan- 
nicus  "  and  elsewhere.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the 
present  Banqueting- House  was  only  one  out  of 


1 84  Miscellanies. 

four  similar  pavilions  in  a  vast  structure  of 
which  the  ground  plan  would  have  extended 
from  the  river  bank  to  a  point  far  beyond  the 
Horse  Guards,  and  would  have  occupied  all  the 
space  on  either  side  of  the  road  from  Horse 
Guards  Avenue  to  the  Mews  of  Richmond 
Terrace.  It  included  no  fewer  than  seven 
splendid  internal  courts,  and  the  facades  towards 
the  park  and  the  Thames  —  the  latter  especially 
—  were  of  great  beauty.  But  the  scheme  was 
beyond  the  pocket  of  the  first  James,  for  whom, 
in  1619,  it  was  designed  ;  and  a  cheaper  modifi- 
cation, reaching  only  to  the  roadway,  and  pre- 
pared twenty  years  later,  fared  no  better  with 
Charles  I.  The  Banqueting-House,  which  was 
built  in  1619-22,  and  is  common  to  both  schemes, 
is  consequently  all  that  was  ever  executed  of 
what,  in  its  completed  form,  would  have  been 
a  palace  among  palaces,  surpassing  the  Louvre 
and  the  Escurial. 

Apart  from  its  existing  employment  as  a  mili- 
tary museum,1  the  Banqueting-House  to-day 
serves  chiefly  as  a  landmark  or  key  by  help  of 
which  its  ancient  environments  may  be  mentally 
re-constructed.  With  Gibbons'  fine  bronze  statue 
of  James  II.,  now  erected  in  the  enclosure  at 

1  /.  <?.,  that  of  the  Royal  United  Service  Institution. 


Old  Whitehall.  185 

the  side  of  Gwydyr  House,1  it  practically  con- 
stitutes the  sole  surviving  portion  of  Old  White- 
hall as  it  appears  in  John  Fisher's  famous 
"Survey  and  Ground-Plot"  of  1680  ;a  and 
about  it  was  dispersed  irregularly  that  pell-mell 
of  buildings  dating  from  Henry  VIII.  and 
Elizabeth,  which,  in  Jacobean  and  Caroline  days, 
was  known  as  "  our  Palace  of  Westminster." 
Roughly  speaking,  this  aggregation  might  be 
defined  geographically  as  bounded  on  the  north8 
by  St.  James's  Park ;  on  the  south  by  the 
Thames ;  to  the  east  by  Scotland  Yard  and 
Spring  Gardens,  and  to  the  west  by  Richmond 
Terrace  Mews.  It  was  traversed  throughout 
its  entire  extent  by  the  old  roadway  leading 
to  Westminster  Abbey,  and  this  divided  it  into 
two  portions,  the  larger  and  more  important  of 
which  lay  on  the  side  of  the  Thames.  From 
Scotland  Yard  to  the  Banqueting-House  the 
road  was  fairly  wide  and  open  ;  but  at  the  west- 
ern end  of  the  Banqueting-House  it  suddenly 
narrowed,  passing  through  the  gate  popularly 

1  This  originally  stood  at  the  back  of  the  Banqueting- 
House  in  Whitehall  Gardens;    but  was   moved  to  its 
present  site  in  1897. 

2  There  are  anachronisms  which  seem  to  indicate  an 
earlier  date. 

3  By  "  north,"  "  south,"  etc.,  the  north  and  south  of 
Fisher's  plan  are  here  intended. 


1 86  Miscellanies. 

known  as  Holbein's,  and  afterwards  entering 
King  Street  through  a  second  or  King  Street 
Gate.  "  K[ing]  Cha[rles],"  the  Marquis  of  Nor- 
manby  told  Evelyn,  "  had  a  designe  to  buy 
all  King  Street,  and  build  it  nobly,  it  being 
the  streete  leading  to  WestmV  Once,  too, 
when  Evelyn  had  presented  him  with  a  copy 
of  his  "  book  of  Architecture,"  he  sketched  a 
rough  plan  for  the  future  building  of  Whitehall 
itself,  "  together  with  the  roomes  of  state,  and 
other  particulars."  But  His  Majesty's  promises 
were  better  than  his  performances  ;  and  he  had 
more  pressing  and  less  worshipful  ways  of 
spending  his  money. 

It  will  be  convenient  to  speak  first  of  that 
part  of  the  palace  buildings  which  lay  to  the 
north  of  King  Street  and  the  road  to  Charing 
Cross.  Here  was  the  old  Cockpit,  which,  in 
the  time  of  Fisher's  Plan,  was  included  in  the 
apartments  of  Monk,  Duke  of  Albemarle,  and 
from  which  the  Earl  of  Pembroke  and  Mont- 
gomery saw  the  first  Charles  walk  from  St. 
James's  Palace  to  the  scaffold.  Later  it  became 
the  Privy-Council  Office,  where,  in  Anne's  reign, 
Harley  was  stabbed  by  Guiscard.  Here  also 
was  the  Tennis  Court ;  and  (fronting  the  Ban- 
queting-House)  the  Tilt-Yard,  where  with  such 
"  laudable  Courtesy  and  pardonable  Insolence," 


Old  Whitehall.  187 

Sir  Roger  de  Coverley's  ancestor  defeated  his 
opponent.1     On  the  site  of  the  present  Treasury, 
and  looking  upon  the  street,  were  the  apart- 
ments of  the  Dukes  of  Monmouth  and  Ormond  ; 
to  the  left   of  these,   the  quarters  of  Captain 
Henry  Cooke,  "  Master  of  the  Children  [choir 
boys]  of  the  Chapel  Royal."    The  remainder  of 
the  buildings  on  this  side  seem  to  have  been 
chiefly   occupied    by    Albemarle,    though    the 
Duchess  of  Cleveland   had   kitchens  near  the 
Tennis  Court,  while  between  the  Horse  Guard 
Yard  and  the  Spring  Garden  were  the   rooms 
of  one  of  the  maids   of  honour,    Mrs.    Kirk, 
under    whose    auspices    took    place    some    of 
those   lively  and   scandalous  petits  soupers,  of 
which  record  is  to  be  found   in  the  veracious 
pages  of  Anthony  Hamilton.     At  the  back  of  all 
these    buildings    stretched    St.   James's   Park, 
where  Charles   II.  made  many  improvements, 
and  built  his  famous  decoy  for  waterfowl.     In 
Evelyn's  days  this   must  have   almost   attained 
the  proportions  of  a  menagerie.     "  Here,"  says 
he,  "  was  a  curious  sort  of  poultry  not  much 
exceeding  the  size  of  a  tame  pidgeon,  with  legs 
so  short  as  their  crops  seem'd  to  touch  ye  earth  ; 
a  milk-white  raven ;  a  stork  which  was  a  rarity 
at  this  season,  seeing  he  was  loose  and  could 
1  Spectator,  No.  109. 


1 88  Miscellanies. 

flie  loftily  ;  two  Balearian  [Balearic  Y]  cranes,  one 
of  which  having  one  of  his  leggs  broken  and  cut 
off  above  the  knee,  had  a  wooden  or  boxen  leg 
and  thigh,  with  a  joynt  so  accurately  made  that 
ye  creature  could  walke  and  use  it  as  well  as 
if  it  had  ben  natural ;  it  was  made  by  a  souldier. 
The  parke  was  at  this  time  stored  with  numerous 
flocks  of  severall  sorts  of  ordinary  and  extra- 
ordinary wild  fowle,  breeding  about  the  Decoy, 
which  for  being  neere  so  greate  a  citty,  and 
among  such  a  concourse  of  souldiers  and  people, 
is  a  singular  and  diverting  thing.  There  were 
also  deere  of  severall  countries,  white ;  spotted 
like  leopards ;  antelopes,  an  elk,  red  deere, 
roebucks,  staggs,  Guinea  goates,  Arabian 
sheepe,  &c.  There  were  withy-potts  or  nests 
for  the  wild  fowle  to  lay  their  eggs  in,  a  little 
above  ye  surface  of  ye  water."1 

Thus  we  come  to  that  larger  and  more  im- 
portant portion  of  Old  Whitehall  which  lay  to 
the  south  of  the  road  between  Westminster  and 
Charing  Cross.  To  the  west  of  the  Banquet- 
ing-House,  and  corresponding  in  width  to  the 
distance  between  the  two  great  gates,  was  the 
Privy  Garden,  where  in  May,  1662,  Mr.  Pepys, 
to  his  great  solace  and  content,  saw  my  Lady 
Castlemaine's  laced  smocks  and  linen  petticoats 

1  "  Memoirs  of  John  Evelyn,"  etc.,  1827,  ii.  234. 


Old  Whitehall.  189 

floating  gaily  to  the  breeze.  According  to  Hat- 
ton,  the  Privy  Garden  occupied  about  three  and 
a  quarter  acres,  and  (as  the  plan  shows)  was  laid 
out  in  sixteen  grass-plots  with  statues  in  the 
centre  of  each.  To  the  north  a  wall  separated 
it  from  the  roadway,  to  the  west  was  a  line  of 
trees,  and  to  the  east  a  straggling  range  of  build- 
ings nearly  at  right  angles  to  the  Banqueting- 
House.  Here  lived  Evelyn's  friend,  Sir  Robert 
Murray;  and  here  were  the  apartments  of  the 
Lord  Chamberlain,  where,  in  November,  1679, 
Evelyn  witnessed  the  re-marriage  of  his  Lord- 
ship's daughter,  a  child  of  twelve  years  old,  to 
the  Duke  of  Grafton,  the  king's  natural  son  by 
Barbara  Palmer.  Here,  again,  were  the  Council 
Office,  the  Lord  Keeper's  Office,  and  the  Treas- 
ury. Opposite  the  Treasury,  in  the  central  walk 
of  the  garden,  was  a  famous  dial,  which  had 
been  set  up  in  James's  reign,  but  had  fallen  into 
ruin  in  that  of  his  grandson.  By  King  James's 
order  it  was  fully  described  in  a  quarto  pub- 
lished in  1624,  by  one  Edmund  Gunter,  and  it 
was  of  it  that  Andrew  Marvell  wrote  the  bitter 
lines  :  — 

"  This  place  for  a  dial  was  too  insecure, 

Since  a  guard  and  a  garden  could  not  it  defend ; 
For  so  near  to  the  Court  they  will  never  endure 
Any  witness  to  show  how  their  time  they  mispend." 


1 90  Miscellanies. 

To  the  south  of  the  Privy  Garden,  and  com- 
municating with  the  Bowling  Green,  which  lay 
to  the  west  of  it  (presumably  on  the  site  now 
occupied  by  Richmond  Terrace),  was  the  fa- 
mous Stone  Gallery.  On  its  northern  side  were 
domiciled  the  Earl  of  Lauderdale,  Lord  Peter- 
borough, Prince  Rupert,  and  Mr.  Hyde  ;  and 
somewhere  in  its  vicinity,  although  not  indicated 
upon  Fisher's  plan,  doubtless  because  granted 
subsequently  to  the  date  of  its  execution,  must 
have  been  the  "  luxuriously-furnished  "  lodgings 
of  that  "  baby-faced  "  (but  not  guileless)  Breton 
beauty,  Louise  Renee  de  Keroualle.  This,  in- 
deed, is  clear  from  Evelyn's  diary.  "4th  Oct. 
[1683]  .  .  .  Following  his  Majesty  this  morn- 
ing thro'  the  gallerie,  I  went,  with  the  few  who  at- 
tended him,  into  the  Dutchesse  of  Portsmouth's  x 
dressing-roome  within  her  bed-chamber,  where 
she  was  in  her  morning  loose  garment,  her 
maids  combing  her,  newly  out  of  her  bed,  his 
Ma'y  and  the  gallants  standing  about  her ;  but 
that  which  engag'd  my  curiosity  was  the  rich 
and  splendid  furniture  of  this  woman's  apart- 
ment, now  twice  or  thrice  pull'd  down  and  re- 
built to  satisfie  her  prodigal  and  expensive  pleas- 
ures, whilst  her  Ma1?3  does  not  exceede  some 

1  From  an  autograph  in  the  French  National  Archives, 
she  signed  herself  "  L  duchesse  de  Portsmout." 


Old  Whitehall.  191 

gentlemen's  ladies  in  furniture  and  accommoda- 
tion. Here  I  saw  the  new  fabriq  of  French 
tapissry,  for  designe,  tenderness  of  worke,  and 
incomparable  imitation  of  the  best  paintings,  be- 
yond anything  I  had  ever  beheld.  Some  pieces 
had  Versailles,  St.  Germain's  and  other  palaces 
of  the  French  King,  with  huntings,  figures  and 
landskips,  exotiq  fowls,  and  all  to  the  life  rarely 
don.  Then  for  Japan  cabinets,  screenes,  pen- 
dule  clocks,  greate  vases  of  wrought  plate, 
tables,  stands,  chimney  furniture,  sconces, 
branches,  braseras,  &c.  all  of  massie  silver,  and 
out  of  number,  besides  some  of  her  Ma4?5  best 
paintings."  "  10  April  [1691].  This  night  a 
sudden  and  terrible  fire  burnt  down  all  the  build- 
ings over  the  stone  gallery  at  White-hall  to  the 
water-side,  beginning  at  the  apartment  of  the 
late  Dutchesse  of  Portsmouth  1  (\vch  had  ben 
pull'd  down  and  rebuilt  no  lesse  than  three 
times  to  please  her)." 

Between  the  Stone  Gallery  and  the  old  river- 
line,  now  obliterated  by  the  Embankment,  and 
covering  a  site  which  extended  as  far  as  White- 
hall Palace  Stairs,  were  the  apartments  of  the 
King,  the  Queen,  the  Duke  of  York,  and  the 

1  What  Evelyn  intends  by  "  late  "  is  not  clear,  as  the 
Duchess  did  not  die  until  1734.  Probably  he  only  means 
that  she  had  withdrawn  to  France. 


195  Miscellanies. 

great  officers  of  the  Court.  The  King's  rooms, 
in  suggestive  proximity  to  those  of  the  Maids  of 
Honour,  and  with  the  notorious  Chiffinch  con- 
veniently at  hand,  were  to  the  left  of  the  Privy 
Stairs  ;  those  of  Catherine  of  Braganza,  which, 
.on  the  plan,  look  small  and  unimportant,  lay  to 
the  right.  Neither  Pepys  nor  Evelyn  gives  us 
much  information  with  regard  to  this  part  of 
the  Palace.  Mention  is  indeed  made  by  them 
and  others  of  the  Shield  Gallery,  the  Matted 
Gallery,  the  Boarded  Gallery,  the  Vane  Room, 
the  Robe  Chamber,  the  Green  Chamber,  the 
Theatre,  the  Adam  and  Eve  Gallery  (which 
took  its  name  from  a  picture  by  Mabuse), 
and  so  forth ;  but  the  indications  are  too 
vague  to  enable  us  to  fix  their  locality  with 
certainty.  By  favour,  however,  of  "  an  ancient 
woman  who  made  these  lodgings  cleane,  and 
had  all  ye  keys,"  Evelyn  seems  to  have  minutely 
examined  the  King's  private  library,  with  which, 
though  he  spent  three  or  four  days  over  it,  he 
was  not  greatly  impressed.  "  I  went,"  he  says, 
"  with  expectation  of  finding  some  curiosities, 
but  though  there  were  about  1000  volumes,  there 
were  few  of  importance  which  I  had  notperus'd 
before."  He  found,  nevertheless,  a  folio  MS. 
containing  the  school  exercises  of  Edward  VI., 
together  with  his  Journal,  which  Burnet  after- 


Old  Whitehall.  193 

wards  made  use  of  in  his  "  History  of  the  Refor- 
mation." *  Towards  Whitehall  Stairs,  between 
the  Banqueting-House  and  the  river,  were  the 
Great  Hall,  and  the  Chapel  where  King  of  Chi- 
chester,  and  the  witty  South,  and  the  eloquent 
Stillingfleet  preached  to  a  unedified  congregation, 
and  where  inquisitive  Mr.  Pepys  "  observed," 
on  a  certain  Sunday  in  October,  1660,  "  how 
the  Duke  of  York  and  Mrs.  Palmer  did  talk  to 
one  another  very  wantonly  through  the  hangings 
that  parts  the  King's  closet  and  the  closet  where 
the  ladies  sit."  An  old  view  of  Whitehall,  from 
the  Thames,  gives  a  fair  idea  of  its  aspect  at  this 
time.  To  the  right  are  the  Chapel  and  Hall,  with 
the  loftier  Banqueting-House  appearing  above 
them,  and  Holbein's  gate  just  distinguishable  at 
its  side.  To  the  left  is  the  covered  Privy  Stairs, 
whence  the  Royal  Barge  with  its  flags  and 
trumpeters  is  just  putting  off.  Here  it  must 
have  been,  that,  little  more  than  two  months  be- 
fore Charles  II.'s  unexpected  death,  Evelyn 
witnessed  the  water  celebration  which  took 
place  in  front  of  the  Queen's  apartments  :  — 
"[Nov.]  15,  [1684]  Being  the  Queene's  birth- 
day, there  were  fire-works  on  the  Thames  be- 
fore White-hall,  with  pageants  of  castles,  forts, 
and  other  devices  of  gyrandolas,  serpents,  the 
1  "  Memoirs  of  John  Evelyn,"  etc.,  1827,  iii.  33-35. 
13 


194  Miscellanies. 

King  and  Queene's  armes  and  mottos,  all  repre- 
sented in  fire,  such  as  had  not  ben  seen  here. 
But  the  most  remarkable  was  the  several  fires 
and  skirmishes  in  the  very  water,  which  actually 
mov'd  a  long  way,  burning  under  the  water, 
now  and  then  appearing  above  it,  giving  reports 
like  muskets  and  cannon,  with  granados  and  in- 
numerable other  devices.  It  is  said  it  cost 
^1,^00.  It  was  concluded  with  a  ball,  where 
all  the  young  ladys  and  gallants  daunced  in  the 
greate  hall.  The  court  had  not  ben  scene  so 
brave  and  rich  in  apparell  since  his  Ma1?8  re- 
stauration."  x  To  this  may  succeed  that  memo- 
rable and  oft-cited  entry,  which  occurs  only  a 
few  pages  farther  on,  when  Charles  was  lying 
dead  :  "  I  can  never  forget  the  inexpressible 
luxury  and  prophanenesse,  gaming  and  all  disso- 
luteness, and  as  it  were  total  forgetfullnesse  of 
God  (it  being  Sunday  evening)  which  this  day 
se'nnight  [2$  January,  1685]  I  was  witnesse  of, 
the  King  sitting  and  toying  with  his  concubines, 
Portsmouth,  Cleaveland  and  Mazarine,  &c.,  a 
French  boy  [Francois  Duperrier]  singing  love 
songs,  in  that  glorious  gallery,  whilst  about  20 
of  the  greate  courtiers  and  other  dissolute  per- 
sons were  at  basset  round  a  large  table,  a  bank 
of  at  least  2,000  in  gold  before  them,  upon  which 
1  "  Memoirs  of  John  Evelyn,"  etc.,  1827,  iii.  121-2. 


Old  Whitehall.  195 

two  gentlemen  who  were  with  me  made  reflex- 
ions with  astonishment.  Six  days  after  was  all 
in  the  dust !  "  The  next  three  lines  with  their 
note  of  official  anti-climax  are  not  so  generally 
reprinted  :  —  "  It  was  enjoyn'd  that  those  who 
put  on  mourning  should  wear  it  as  for  a  father, 
in  ye  most  solemn  manner." 

From  Whitehall  Palace  Stairs  a  roadway 
went,  past  the  Chapel  and  Great  Hall,  through 
a  wide  open  court  to  the  Palace  Gate,  close  to 
what  was  the  site  of  the  old  Wardrobe  (after- 
wards Lord  Carrington's).  To  the  right  of  this 
road,  and  extending  as  far  as  Scotland  Yard, 
were  groups  of  inferior  buildings  and  offices, — 
kitchens,  butteries,  pastries,  spiceries,  bake- 
houses, slaughter-houses,  charcoal-houses,  and 
the  like,  —  traces  of  which  may  still  be  identified. 
The  present  Board  of  Trade,  and  the  adjacent 
buildings  in  Horse  Guards  Avenue,  occupy  por- 
tions of  the  sites  of  the  Wine-Cellar,  Hall,  and 
Chapel ;  the  Confectionary  is  said  to  have  been 
a  white  house  between  the  former  Museum  of 
the  United  Service  Institution  and  Lord  Car- 
rington's stables,  and  the  old  Beer  Buttery  long 
existed  near  the  gates  of  Fife  House,  the  place 
of  which  is  now  covered  by  part  of  Whitehall 
Court. 

Standing  in  the  entrance  to    Horse    Guards 


196  Miscellanies. 

Avenue  (once  Whitehall  Yard),  one  may  still, 
with  the  aid  of  an  old  view  or  two,  and  Fisher's 
indispensable  plan,  obtain  a  fair  idea  of  the  place 
in  the  time  of  the  Stuarts.  Opposite  —  where 
the  Scottish  Office  and  Horse  Guards  are  at 
present  —  was  the  boundary  wall  of  the  old  Tilt 
and  Horse  Guard  Yards.  To  the  left,  imme- 
diately in  front  of  the  Banqueting-House,  ex- 
tended a  row  of  posts,  a  little  in  advance  of 
which  —  "  in  the  open  street  before  Whitehall  " 
—  was  the  spot  where,  after  much  controversy, 
Charles  I.  is  now  allowed  to  have  been  be- 
headed. At  right  angles  to  the  fa?ade  a  line 
of  buildings  ran  out  to  Whitehall  Gate.  These, 
which  also  looked  into  the  Privy  Garden,  were, 
as  already  explained,  the  apartments  of  Lord 
Arlington,  the  Lord  Chamberlain.  Of  Whitehall 
Gate  itself, — for,  according  to  Mr.  Wornum, 
we  are  scarcely  justified  in  styling  it  Hol- 
bein's, —  Pennant,  who  seems  to  have  seen  it, 
gives  the  following  account:  —  "To  Holbein 
was  owing  the  most  beautiful  gate  at  Whitehall, 
built  with  bricks  of  two  colours,  glazed,  and 
disposed  in  a  tesselated  fashion.  The  top,  as 
well  as  that  of  an  elegant  tower  on  each  side, 
were  [sic]  embattled.  On  each  front  were  four 
busts  in  baked  clay,  which  resisted  to  the  last 
every  attack  of  the  weather:  possibly  the  arti- 


Old  Whitehall.  197 

ficial  stone  revived  in  this  century.  These,  I 
have  been  lately  informed,  are  preserved  in  a 
private  hand.  This  charming  structure  fell  a 
sacrifice  to  conveniency  within  my  memory : 
as  did  another  in  1723,  built  at  the  same  time, 
but  of  far  inferior  beauty.  The  last  blocked 
up  the  road  to  King's-Street,  and  was  called 
King's-Gate.  Henry  built  it  as  a  passage  to 
the  park,  the  tennis  court,  bowling-green,  the 
cock-pit,  and  tilting-yard;  for  he  was  extremely 
fond  of  athletic  exercises  ;  they  suited  his 
strength  and  his  temper."1 

Both  these  gates  were  engraved  by  Vertue  in 
the  "  Vetusta  Monumenta  "  published  by  the 
Society  of  Antiquaries.  The  so-called  Hol- 
bein's Gate,  which  long  survived  the  buildings 
that  connected  it  with  the  Banqueting-House, 
was  pulled  down  in  August,  17^9,  to  make  room 
for  Parliament  Street.  The  Duke  of  Cumber- 
land had  it  removed  to  Windsor,  with  the  inten- 
tion of  re-erecting  it  at  the  top  of  the  Long 
Walk,  and  his  Deputy  Ranger,  Thomas  Sandby 
(the  architect),  was  to  have  made  some  addi- 
tions at  the  sides,  the  designs  for  which  are  still 
to  be  seen  in  J.  T.  Smith's  "Westminster." 
But,  as  seems  generally  the  case  after  removals 
of  this  kind,  nothing  was  ever  done  in  the  mat- 

1  "  Some  Account  of  London,"  3d  ed.,  1793,  pp.  99,  100. 


198  Miscellanies. 

ter.  Meanwhile  the  medallions  of  which  Pen- 
nant speaks  were  dispersed.  Three  of  them, 
according  to  Smith,  were,  when  he  published 
his  book,  at  Hatfield  Peverell  in  Essex ;  two 
more  got  worked  into  keepers'  lodges  at  Wind- 
sor. These,  said  Cunningham  in  1849,  "  are 
now,  by  Mr.  Jesse's  [i.  e.  the  late  J.  Heneage 
Jesse's]  exertions,  at  Hampton  Court,  where 
they  are  made  to  do  duty  as  two  of  the  Roman 
Emperors,  described  by  Hentzner,  in  his  Travels, 
as  then  at  Hampton  Court."  They  are  of  Italian 
workmanship,  and  may  probably  be  attributed  to 
John  de  Maiano. 

Those  who,  having  sufficiently  examined  the 
Palladian  exterior  of  the  Banqueting- House, 
and  duly  noted  the  famous  weather-cock  on  the 
eastern  end,  which  James  II.  is  said  to  have  set 
up  to  warn  him  of  the  approach  of  the  Dutch 
fleet,  desire  farther  to  inspect  the  interior,  can 
easily  do  so,  since  (as  already  stated)  the  build- 
ing is  now  a  museum.  Its  chief  feature  of 
interest  is  the  ceiling,  which  represents  the 
apotheosis  of  James  I.  It  is  painted  black, 
partly  gilded,  and  divided  into  panels  by  bands, 
ornamented  with  a  guilloche.  Of  the  three 
central  compartments,  that  at  one  end  repre- 
sents the  British  Solomon  on  his  throne,  "  point- 
ing to  Prince  Charles,  who  is  being  perfected 


Old  Whitehall.  199 

by  Wisdom."  The  middle  compartment  shows 
him  "  trampling  on  the  globe  and  flying  on  the 
wings  of  Justice  (an  eagle)  to  heaven."  In  the 
third  he  is  "  embracing  Minerva,  and  routing 
Rebellion  and  Envy."  These  panels,  and  others 
at  the  sides,  were  painted  by  Rubens  in  163$, 
with  the  assistance  of  Jordaens.  They  were 
restored  by  Cipriani.  In  1837,  the  whole  build- 
ing, which  had  been  closed  since  1829,  was 
refitted  and  repaired  under  the  direction  of  Sir 
Robert  Smirke. 

It  would  occupy  too  large  a  space  to  trace 
the  history  of  the  Banqueting-House  from  its 
first  erection  to  its  Georgian  transformation  into 
an  unconsecrated  chapel,  seductive  as  it  might 
be  to  speak  of  it  as  the  theatre  of  Ben  Jonson's 
masques  and  the  buffooneries  of  Cromwell.  In 
Charles  II.'s  time,  to  which,  in  the  foregoing 
remarks,  we  have  mainly  confined  ourselves,  it 
was  the  scene  of  many  impressive  ceremonies 
and  state  receptions.  It  was  in  the  Banqueting- 
House  that  Charles  begged  his  Honourable 
House  of  Commons  to  amend  the  ways  about 
Whitehall,  so  that  Catherine  of  Braganza  might 
not  upon  her  arrival  find  it  "  surrounded  by 
water;"  it  was  in  the  Banqueting-House  that 
he  gravely  went  through  that  half  solemn  half 
ludicrous  business  of  touching  for  the  evil ;  it 


2oo  Miscellanies. 

was  in  the  Banqueting-House  that,  coming  from 
the  Tower  of  London  with  a  splendid  cavalcade, 
he  created  at  one  time  six  Earls  and  six  Barons. 
Under  its  storied  roof  he  magnificently  enter- 
tained the  French  Ambassador,  Charles  Colbert, 
Marquis  de  Croissy,  on  which  occasion  he  pre- 
sented Mr.  Evelyn,  from  his  own  royal  plate,  with 
a  piece  of  that  newly-imported  Barbadian  luxury, 
the  King-pine ; l  it  was  here  also  that  he  re- 
ceived the  Russian  Ambassador  with  his  pres- 
ents of  "  tapissry"  and  sables,  and  the  swarthy 
envoys  from  Morocco,  with  their  scymetars  and 
white  alhagas,  and  their  lions  and  "estridges  " 
[ostriches] .  But  perhaps  the  brightest  and  most 
vivid  page  in  connection  with  this  famous  old 
building  is  that  in  which  Samuel  Pepys  relates 
what  he  saw  from  its  roof  on  the  2}rd  of 
August  1662:  — 

"  .  .  Mr.  Creed  .  .  and  I  .  .  walked  down 
to  the  Styllyard  [Steel  Yard]  and  so  all  along 
Thames-street,  but  could  not  get  a  boat :  I 
offered  eight  shillings  for  a  boat  to  attend  me  this 

1  In  the  Breakfast  Room  at  Strawberry  Hill,  Horace 
Walpole  had  a  picture  representing  Rose,  the  Royal 
gardener,  in  the  act  of  presenting  to  Charles  II.  the  first 
pineapple  raised  in  England.  It  (the  painting)  was  at- 
tributed to  Danckers ;  and  had  belonged  to  a  descendant 
of  one  of  the  firm  of  London  and  Wise,  Nursery-men, 
mentioned  in  the  fifth  number  of  the  Spectator. 


Old  Whitehall.  201 

afternoon,  and  they  would  not,  it  being  the  day 
of  the  Queen's  coming  to  town  from  Hampton 
Court.  So  we  fairly  walked  it  to  White  Hall, 
and  through  my  Lord's  [  Lord  Sandwich's]  lodg- 
ings we  got  into  White  Hall  garden,  and  so  to 
the  Bowling-green,  and  up  to  the  top  of  the  new 
Banqueting-House1  there,  over  the  Thames, 
which  was  a  most  pleasant  place  as  any  I  could 
have  got ;  and  all  the  show  consisted  chiefly  in 
the  number  of  boats  and  barges  ;  and  two  pag- 
eants, one  of  a  King,  and  another  of  a  Queen, 
with  her  Maydes  of  Honour  sitting  at  her  feet 
very  prettily ;  and  they  tell  me  the  Queen  is  Sir 
Richard  Ford's  daughter.  Anon  come  the  King 
and  Queen  in  a  barge  under  a  canopy  with 
10,000  barges  and  boats,  I  think,  for  we  could 
see  no  water  for  them,  nor  discern  the  King  nor 
Queen.  And  so  they  landed  at  White  Hall 
Bridge  [Privy  Stairs]  and  the  great  guns  on  the 
other  side  went  off.  But  that  which  pleased  me 
best  was,  that  my  Lady  Castlemaine  stood  over 
against  us  upon  a  piece  of  White  Hall,  where  I 
glutted  myself  with  looking  on  her.  But  me- 
thought  it  was  strange  to  see  her  Lord  and  her 
upon  the  same  place  walking  up  and  down  with- 

1  No  doubt  still  so  called  by  habit,  as  it  succeeded  to  an 
earlier  Banqueting-House  which  was  burnt  in  January, 
1619. 


202  Miscellanies. 

out  taking  notice  one  of  another,  only  at  first 
entry  he  put  off  his  hat,  and  she  made  him  a  very 
civil  salute,  but  afterwards  took  no  notice  one  of 
another  ;  but  both  of  them  now  and  then  would 
take  their  child,  which  the  nurse  held  in  her 
armes,  and  dandle  it.  One  thing  more  ;  there 
happened  a  scaffold  below  to  fall,  and  we  feared 
some  hurt,  but  there  was  none,  but  she  of  all  the 
great  ladies  only  run  down  among  the  common 
rabble  to  see  what  hurt  was  done,  and  did  take 
care  of  a  child  that  received  some  little  hurt, 
which  methought  was  so  noble.  Anon  there 
came  one  there  booted  and  spurred  that  she 
talked  long  with.  And  by  and  by,  she  being  in 
her  hair,  she  put  on  his  hat,  which  was  but  an 
ordinary  one,  to  keep  the  wind  off.  But  me- 
thinks  it  became  her  mightily,  as  every  thing 
else  do.'1  l 

Evelyn's  last  entry  respecting  the  old  palace 
is  as  follows:  "2  [4?]  Jan.  [1698].  .  .  . 
White-hall  burnt,  nothing  but  walls  and  ruins 
left."  Thus  it  comes  about  that  the  Banquet- 
ing-House  (which,  notwithstanding  the  above, 
escaped),  besides  being  the  sole  relic  of  a  never- 
existent  Whitehall,  is  also  the  sole  relic  of  the 
Whitehall  that  was. 

1  Pepys'  "Diary,"  by  Wheatley,  ii  (1893),  316,  317. 


LUTTRELL'S    "  LETTERS   TO    JULIA." 

TV  TOT  H I NG  ('t  is  a  melancholy  truism)  fades 
1  \|  with  such  rapidity  as  the  reputation  of  the 
mere  favourite  of  society.  If  he  be  a  dandy 
his  name,  perhaps,  may  linger  here  and  there  in 
the  circular  of  a  fashionable  tailor  ;  if  a  wit, 
his  sayings,  although — like  those  of  Praed's 
Belle  —  "extremely  quoted"  during  his  life- 
time, scarcely  survive  his  contemporaries  and 
boon-companions.  It  may  be  that  he  secures 
to  himself  some  notice  from  posterity  by  posthu- 
mous "Memoirs"  put  together  by  a  friend  — 
perhaps  a  valet ;  or  he  may  leave  behind  him 
some  literary  legacy  which  now  and  then  is 
disinterred  from  the  shelves  of  the  British 
Museum  Library  (if.  indeed,  it  has  found  an 
asylum  there)  by  an  enquirer  curious  in  forgot- 
ten follies,  or  anxious  to  elucidate  the  carica- 
tures of  Gillray  and  "  H3."  But,  as  a  rule,  if 
he  does  not  die  early,  he  passes  "  into  the  line 
of  outworn  faces,"  and  his  place  knows  him  no 
more.  Only  from  a  magazine  obituary,  or  a 
stray  paragraph  in  a  provincial  paper,  does  one 


204  Miscellanies. 

learn,  half-a-century  afterwards,  that  an  old  vale- 
tudinarian has  died  at  Bath,  or  Cheltenham,  or 
Boulogne,  who,  in  his  earlier  days,  was  a  favourite 
with  the  Prince  Regent,  a  well-known  habitue" 
of  Brooks's  and  White's,  a  member  of  the  Nea- 
politan Club,  and  a  frequent  figure  at  Crock- 
ford's.  These  remarks,  applicable,  it  should 
be  observed,  more  exactly  to  the  Georgian  than 
the  Victorian  era.  are  mainly  prompted  by  the 
difficulty  experienced  in  obtaining  particulars 
respecting  the  career  of  the  once-famous  wit 
and  writer  of  vers  de  soci^te",  whose  chief  work 
forms  the  subject  of  this  paper.  Yet,  if  we 
may  trust  a  manuscript  note  in  our  copy  of  the 
"  Letters  to  Julia,"  the  author  of  that  book  and 
"  Crockford  House"  attained  the  ripe  age  of 
eighty-six ;  and  seventy  years  ago  no  one  was 
better  known  in  the  higher  classes  of  society 
as  —  to  use  a  phrase  which  would  have  been 
employed  in  the  days  when  "Pelham"  was 
penned  —  a  man  of  the  world  du  meilleur  crtt. 
The  friend  of  Jekyll  and  Lord  Alvanley,  of 
Mackintosh  and  Sydney  Smith,  of  Lord  Hol- 
land and  Jeffery,  of  Greville,  of  Moore,  of 
Rogers ;  a  wit  with  the  wits,  a  scholar  with  the 
scholars ;  fairly  earning  a  hearing,  even  in  those 
days  of  "  Whistlecraft  "  burlesques  and  "  Two- 
penny Postboys,"  as  a  writer  of  sparkling  verse ; 


Luttrelis  "  Letters  to  Julia."          205 

an  admirable  talker  and  a  polished  gentleman  — 
HENRY  LUTTRELL  must  have  been  one  of  the 
most  delightful  of  social  companions.  Yet, 
secluded  in  those  inner  circles  to  which  admis- 
sion was  as  difficult  as  getting  on  the  list  of 
"  Almack's,"  he  lies  entirely  beyond  the  range 
of  the  ordinary  life-taker ;  and  the  few  refer- 
ences to  his  character  and  works  are  only  to  be 
found  sparsely  scattered  through  the  pages  of 
contemporary,  and,  alas  !  often  unindexed  "  me- 
moirs." In  Lady  Holland's  life  of  Sydney 
Smith,  for  example,  there  are  some  brief  refer- 
ences to  his  lightness  of  hand,  his  willingness 
to  be  pleased,  his  amusing  Irish  stories.  "  Lut- 
trell,"  says  Smith,  warning  Lady  Davy  against 
overlooking  the  difficulties  and  embarrassments 
of  life,  "  before  I  taught  him  better,  imagined 
muffins  grew.  He  was  wholly  ignorant  of  all 
the  intermediate  processes  of  sowing,  reaping, 
grinding,  kneading,  and  baking."  This  is  not 
much  of  a  contribution  to  a  portrait,  no  doubt ; 
but  it  affords  a  hint  of  that  sublime  and  gen- 
erally affected  indifference  to  the  homelier  phe- 
nomena of  life  which  forms  an  indispensable 
part  of  the  equipment  of  the  man  of  the  world,  — 
du  meilleur  crd.  Yet,  although  we  find  Rogers 
regretting  his  attachment  to,  and  monopoly  by, 
"persons  of  mere  fashion,"  Luttrell,  it  is  only 


206  Miscellanies. 

fair  to  infer,  must  have  been  considerably  more 
than  this.  Everywhere,  by  happy  allusion,  and 
fine  turns  of  expression,  his  work  shows  an 
intimate  knowledge  of  classic  authors  ;  and,  as 
might  be  anticipated,  of  Horace  in  particular. 

"Tickler,"  in  the  "  Noctes  Ambrosianae," 
calls  him  "  one  of  the  most  accomplished  men 
in  all  England  —  a  wit  and  a  scholar."  "Of 
course  you  know  Luttrell,"  said  Byron  to  Lady 
Blessington  ;  "  he  is  the  best  sayer  of  good 
things,  and  the  most  epigrammatic  conversa- 
tionist I  ever  met.  There  is  a  terseness  and 
wit,  mingled  with  fancy,  in  his  observations  that 
no  one  else  possesses,  and  no  one  so  peculiarly 
understands  the  apropos.  Then,  unlike  all,  or 
most  other  wits,  Luttrell  is  never  obtrusive  ;  even 
the  choicest  bons  mots  are  only  brought  forth 
when  perfectly  applicable,  and  they  are  given  in 
a  tone  of  good  breeding  which  enhances  their 
value."  "  None  of  the  talkers  whom  I  meet 
in  London  society,1'  says  Rogers,  "  can  slid.e 
in  a  brilliant  thing  with  such  readiness  as  he 
does."  The  impression  here  given  is  rather 
of  a  wit  than  a  humourist;  there  is  more  in  it 
of  Chamfort  or  Rivarol  than  Thackeray  or  Syd- 
ney Smith  ;  but,  in  default  of  more  definite 
information,  it  enables  us  to  form  an  idea  of  the 
easy,  fluent  causeur,  touching  all  topics  lightly, 


Luttrell's  "  Letters  to  Julia."  207 

quick  to  catch  the  fleeting  fancy  and  crystallise 
it  into  an  epigram,  to  turn  a  dull  corner  with  an 
adroit  quotation  from  the  classics  (such  things 
were  possible  formerly),  to  light  up  a  mediocre 
story  with  a  happy  setting  ;  —  able  and  ready, 
in  short,  to  give  that  sparkling  ripple  to  the  flow 
of  conversation  which  made  the  gifted  possessor 
of  these  rare  qualities  the  envy  of  diners-out, 
and  the  delight  of  hostesses.  The  more  con- 
ventional type  of  such  a  character  Luttrell  has 
himself  sketched  in  easy  octosyllabics  :  — 

How  much  at  home  was  Charles  in  all 
The  talk  aforesaid  —  nicknamed  small ! 
Never  embarrassed,  seldom  slow, 
His  maxim  always  "touch  and  go." 
Chanced  he  to  falter  ?    A  grimace 
Was  ready  in  the  proper  place  ; 
Or  a  chased  snuff-box,  with  its  gems 
And  gold,  to  mask  his  has  and  hems, 
Was  offered  round,  and  duly  rapped, 
Till  a  fresh  topic  could  be  tapped. 
What  if  his  envious  rivals  swore 
'T  was  jargon  all,  and  he  a  bore  ? 
The  surly  sentence  was  outvoted, 
His  jokes  retailed,  his  jargon  quoted  ; 
And  while  he  sneered  or  quizzed  or  flirted, 
The  world,  half-angry,  was  diverted. 

It  would  be  of  no  service  to  reproduce  here 
any  of  the  half-dozen  good  things  of  Luttrell  that 


208  Miscellanies. 

linger  in  Moore's  "  Diary."  Many  of  these 
are  of  that  class  whose  prosperity  lies  emphat- 
ically in  the  ear  of  the  listener  ;  and  we  are  too 
far  removed  from  the  speaker  to  be  able  to 
revive  those  niceties  of  manner  and  delivery 
which  were  essential  to  a  just  appreciation  of 
them.  With  his  verse  the  case  is  different. 
That,  at  least,  was  intended  to  be  read  ;  and 
although  some  of  the  allusions  are  necessarily 
obscure,  we  can,  by  a  slight  effort,  place  our- 
selves in  the  position  of  the  audience  to  whom 
it  was  originally  addressed.  We  must  frankly 
confess,  however,  that,  doubtless  from  the  ab- 
sence of  those  individual  advantages  of  address 
and  opportunity  which  gave  him  grace  as  a  con- 
versationalist, LuttrelFs  work,  easy  and  polished 
though  it  be,  scarcely  impresses  one  as  com- 
mensurate with  the  praise  he  received  from  his 
contemporaries.  But  of  this  the  reader  must 
judge  from  the  specimens  here  reproduced. 

The  "Letters  to  Julia,"1  Luttrell's  longest 
and  most  ambitious  effort,  is  an  amplification  of 

1  In  the  first  edition  of  the  poem,  issued  in  1820,  it 
bore  the  title  of  "Advice  to  Julia,"  and  the  lady  ad- 
dressed corresponded  more  exactly  with  the  Lydia  of 
Horace.  But  we  are  dealing  with  the  later  edition 
of  1822,  published  under  the  title  we  quote  above,  and 
in  this  we  are  told  that  "  the  first  Julia  must  be  forgiven 
and  forgotten." 


Luttrell's  "Letters  to  Julia."           209 

that  pleasant  little  ode  in  the  first  book  of 
Horace,  in  which  Lydia  is  enjoined  by  the  poet 
not  to  ruin  Sybaris  by  a  too  exclusive  attach- 
ment to  her  apron-strings.  The  reader  who 
recalls  the  sixteen  lines  of  the  original,  may 
perhaps  wonder  how  it  was  possible  to  expand 
so  brief  a  lyric  into  a  poem  of  two  hundred 
pages.  And,  indeed,  under  the  digressions  of 
the  author,  the  primary  motive  almost  entirely 
disappears.  But  as  he  himself  gives  us  the 
above  explanation  of  the  origin  of  his  work,  we 
are  bound  to  regard  it.  His  first  conception, 
he  says,  was  "  by  filling  up  such  an  outline  on 
a  wider  canvas,  to  exhibit  a  picture,  if  imperfect 
not  unfaithful,  of  modern  habits  and  manners, 
and  of  the  amusements  and  lighter  occupations 
of  the  higher  classes  of  society  in  England." 

Viewed  in  this  aspect,  it  matters  little  how 
the  idea  was  first  suggested.  In  the  four  epis- 
tles of  which  the  book  consists,  the  parts  of 
Lydia  and  Sybaris  are  taken  by  Charles,  a  man 
of  fashion  and  pleasure,  embarrassed,  as  a  mat- 
ter of  course,  but  "  at  the  head  of  the  supreme 
bon  ton  ;  "  and  Julia,  a  young  widow  of  two-and- 
twenty,  rather  lower  in  the  social  scale,  but  rich 
and  spoiled  by  flattery,  who  quite  intends  to 
marry  her  desirable  admirer  whenever  it  suits 
her  to  do  so,  but  in  the  meantime  subjects  him  to 


2 1  o  Miscellanies. 

all  the  petty  tyrannies  of  coquetry  and  caprice. 
The  writer  of  the  letters  is  a  cousin  of  the  lady, 
who  undertakes  to  remonstrate  with  her  upon 
her  harsh  treatment  of  her  lover.  In  this  task, 
thanks  to  numberless  digressions,  he  manages 
to  ramble  from  "  Almack's"  to  Newmarket, 
from  Brighton  to  Paris  —  where  you  will  — 
sketching  lightly  picture  after  picture  of  the 
fashionable  life  of  the  first  quarter  of  the  cen- 
tury. Now  he  amplifies  cur  vital  olivum  into 
a  score  of  lines,  descriptive  of  his  recreant 
hero's  avoidance  of  Moulsey  and  the  Fives 
Court;  of  — 

—  rubbing,  racing  and  raw  meat ; 
now  mourns  that  no  longer  — 

with  pliant  arm  he  stems 
The  tide  or  current  of  the  Thames ; 

now  laments  his  abdication  of  his  proud  suprem- 
acy as  a  dresser,  and  master  of  the  awful 
mysteries  of  the  Cravat  of  our  grandfathers. 
Readers  will  recall  the  anecdote  of  BrummeH's 
tray-full  of  failures  in  the  following : 

Yet  weak,  he  felt,  were  the  attacks 
Of  his  voluminous  Cossacks ; 1 

1  Those  trowsers  named  from  the  barbarians 
Nursed  in  the  Steppes  —  the  Crim-Tartarians, 
Who,  when  they  scour  a  country,  under 
Those  ample  folds  conceal  their  plunder. 


LuttreWs  "  Letters  to  Julia."          211 

In  vain  to  suffocation  braced 
And  bandaged  was  his  wasp-like  waist ; 
In  vain  his  buckram-wadded  shoulders 
And  chest  astonished  all  beholders  ; 
Wear  any  coat  he  might,  'twas  fruitless; 
Those  shoes,  those  very  boots  were  bootless 
Whose  tops  ('twas  he  enjoined  the  mixture) 
Are  moveable,  and  spurs  a  fixture  ; 
All  was  unprofitable,  flat, 
And  stale  without  a  smart  CRAVAT, 
Muslined  enough  to  hold  its  starch  ; 
That  last  key-stone  of  Fashion's  arch  ! 

"  Have  you,  my  friend,"  I  've  heard  him  say, 

"  Been  lucky  in  your  turns  to-day  ?  — 

Think  not  that  what  I  ask  alludes 

To  Fortune's  stale  vicissitudes. 

Or  that  I  'm  driven  from  you  to  learn 

How  cards,  and  dice,  and  women  turn, 

And  what  prodigious  contributions 

They  levy,  in  their  revolutions  : 

I  ask  not  if,  in  times  so  critical, 

You  've  managed  \vell  your  turns  political, 

Knowing  your  aptitude  to  rat. 

My  question  points  to  —  your  Cravat. 

These  are  the  only  turns  I  mean. 

Tell  me  if  these  have  lucky  been  ? 

How  strange  their  destiny  has  been  I 
Promoted,  since  the  year  fifteen, 
In  honour  of  these  fierce  allies, 
To  grace  our  British  legs  and  thighs. 
But  fashion's  tide  no  barrier  stems  ; 
So  the  Don  mingles  with  the  Thames  ! 


212  Miscellanies. 

If  round  your  neck,  in  every  fold 
Exact,  the  muslin  has  been  rolled, 
And,  dexterously  in  front  confined, 
Preserved  the  proper  set  behind  ; 
In  short,  by  dint  of  hand  and  eye, 
Have  you  achieved  a  perfect  tie  ? 

"  Should  yours  (kind  heaven,  avert  the  omen  ! ) 

Like  the  cravats  of  vulgar,  low  men, 

Asunder  start  — and,  yawning  wide, 

Disclose  a  chasm  on  either  side ; 

Or  should  it  stubbornly  persist, 

To  take  some  awkward  tasteless  twist, 

Some  crease  indelible,  and  look 

Just  like  a  dunce's  dog's-eared  book, 

How  would  you  parry  the  disgrace  ? 

In  what  assembly  show  your  face  ? 

How  brook  your  rival's  scornful  glance, 

Or  partner's  titter  in  the  dance  ? 

How  in  the  morning  dare  to  meet 

The  quizzers  of  the  park  or  street  ? 

Your  occupation 's  gone,  —  in  vain 

Hope  to  dine  out,  or  flirt  again. 

The  LADIES  from  their  lists  will  put  you  ! 

And  even  /,  my  friend,  must  cut  you  1  " 

This  is  a  good  sample  of  Luttrell's  lighter  man- 
ner. Here  is  another  —  a  wail  from  "  Almack's  " 
over  the  substitution  of  tea  for  supper  :  — 

"  How  niggardly,"  they  cry,  "  to  stoop 
To  paltry  black  and  green  from  soup  ! 
Once,  every  novice  could  obtain 
A  hearing  over  iced  Champagne, 


LuttreWs  "Letters  to  Julia."          213 

And  claret,  ev'n  of  second  growth, 
Gave  credit  to  an  amorous  oath. 
But  now,  such  lifeless  love  is  made 
On  cakes,  orgeat,  and  lemonade, 
That  hungry  women  grow  unkind, 
And  men  too  faint  to  speak  their  mind. 
Tea  mars  all  mirth,  makes  evenings  drag, 
And  talk  grow  flat,  and  courtship  flag  ; 
Tea,  mawkish  beverage,  is  the  reason 
Why  fifty  flirtings  in  a  season 
Swell  with  ten  marriages,  at  most, 
The  columns  of  the  Morning-Post." 

We  might  easily  multiply  extracts  of  this  kind. 
And  jaunty  and  fluent  as  are  the  above  passages, 
there  are  others  which  suggest  that  the  author 
had  a  first-rate  talent  for  natural  description  and 
quiet  landscape,  points  which  here  and  there 
seem  to  rise  above  his  pictures  of  men  and 
women  —  or  rather,  belles  and  exquisites.  Here 
is  a  picture  of  a  storm  in  the  Park,  which  is 
close  and  effective,  and  quite  as  truthful  in  its 
realism  as  Swift's  "City  Shower":  — 

How  suddenly  the  day  's  obscured ! 

Bless  me,  how  dark  !  —  Thou  threatening  cloud. 

Pity  the  un-umbrella'd  crowd. 

The  cloud  rolls  onward  with  the  breeze. 

First,  pattering  on  the  distant  trees 

The  rain-drops  fall  —  then  quicker,  denser, 

On  many  a  parasol  and  spencer ; 

Soon  drenching,  with  no  mercy  on  it, 

The  straw  and  silk  of  many  a  bonnet. 


214  Miscellanies. 

Think  of  their  hapless  owners  fretting, 
While  feathers,  crape,  and  gauze  are  wetting  1 
Think  of  the  pang  to  well-dressed  girls, 
When,  pinched  in  vain,  their  hair  uncurls, 
And  ringlets  from  each  lovely  pate 
Hang  mathematically  straight ! 
As  off,  on  every  side,  they  scour, 
Still  beats  the  persecuting  shower, 
Till,  on  the  thirsty  gravel  smoking, 
It  fairly  earns  the  name  of  soaking. 
Breathless  they  scud ;  some  helter-skelter 
To  carriages,  and  some  for  shelter  ; 
Lisping  to  coachmen  drunk  or  dumb 
In  numbers  —  while  no  numbers  come. 

And  what  dweller  in  London  will  not  recog- 
nise the  accuracy  of  this  :  — 

Have  you  not  seen  (you  must  remember  ) 
A  fog  in  London  —  time,  November  ? 
That  non-descript  elsewhere,  and  grown 
In  our  congenial  soil  alone  ? 
First,  at  the  dawn  of  lingering  day 
It  rises,  of  an  ashen  grey, 
Then,  deepening  with  a  sordid  stain 
Of  yellow,  like  a  lion's  mane, 
Vapour  importunate  and  dense, 
It  wars  at  once  with  every  sense, 
Invades  the  eyes,  is  tasted,  smelt, 
And,  like  Egyptian  darkness,  felt. 
The  ears  escape  not.     All  around 
Returns  a  dull  unwonted  sound. 
Loth  to  stand  still,  afraid  to  stir, 
The  chilled  and  puzzled  passenger, 


LuttreWs  "Letters  to  Julia."           215 

Oft-blundering  from  the  pavement,  fails 
To  feel  his  way  along  the  rails, 
Or,  at  the  crossings,  in  the  roll 
Of  every  carriage  dreads  its  pole. 

Here  again  —  in  a  picture  of  the  Serpentine 
in  winter  —  are  some  lines  which  to  us  appear 
to  be  thoroughly  successful  in  their  choice  and 
economy  of  epithet  :  — 

What  time  the  slanting  wintry  sun 
Just  skirts  th'  horizon,  and  is  gone  ; 
When  from  his  disk  a  short-lived  glare 
Is  wasted  on  the  clear  cold  air ; 
When  the  snow  sparkles,  on  the  sight 
Flashing  intolerable  white ; 
And,  swept  by  hurried  feet,  the  ground 
Returns  a  crisp  and  crushing  sound. 

The  main  defect  of  the  "  Letters  to  Julia"  is 
its  length.  One  of  the  poet's  contemporaries 
(Kenney,  the  creator  of  Jeremy  Diddler)  com- 
plained indeed,  that,  besides  being  too  long,  it 
was  "  not  broad  enough  ;  "  but  with  the  absence 
of  the  latter  dimension,  we  need  not  quarrel.  In 
point  of  even  execution,  and  that  air  of  reticent 
good  breeding  which  Byron  declared  to  be 
characteristic  of  the  author's  style  in  speaking, 
little  is  wanting.  The  purpureus  pannus  is,  in 
truth,  carefully  kept  out  of  sight ;  and  yet,  not- 
withstanding the  strict  observance  of  the  Hora- 


2 1 6  Miscellanies. 

tian  precept,  there  is  a  certain  lack  of  colour  and 
variety,  which  begets  an  impatient  desire  for 
discordance  of  some  sort.  One  is  reminded,  in 
turning  over  the  pages  of  faultlessly  rhymed 
couplets,  of  that  "  Cymodoce'e  "  of  Chateau- 
briand, in  which  there  was  not  a  single  elision, 
and  concerning  which  the  irreverent  said,  — 
"  Tant  pis  pour  Cymodoc6e  !  "  That  the  poem 
treats  solely  of  trivial  pursuits  and  amusements 
cannot  justly  be  counted  as  a  defect,  since  the 
author's  intention  was  to  depict  the  habits  of 
the  merely  fashionable  world.  This  his  graver 
contemporaries  fully  recognised  when  they  nick- 
named the  book,  "  Letters  from  a  Dandy  to  a 
Dolly."  A  less  excusable  fault  is,  that  Luttrell 
nowhere  opposes  to  his  picture  of  frivolity  any 
hint  of  higher  or  worthier  employment  ;  nor  is 
there,  as  in  these  days  there  assuredly  would  be  if 
the  theme  were  treated  by  a  modern,  any  subtle 
indication  of  a  graver  side  to  the  story,  or  any 
skilful  suggestion  as  to  the  unreality  of  so- 
called  pleasure  as  an  object  in  life.  But  these 
differences  are  in  some  respects  due  to  changed 
conditions  of  society,  and  altered  points  of 
view.  We  are  sadder  than  our  forefathers, 
and  if  we  have  no  longer  their  hearty  appetites, 
we  are  not  so  willingly  grave  that  we  do  not 
occasionally  envy  them  their  high  spirits. 


Luttrell's  "Letters  to  Julia."1          217 

Little  room  remains  to  speak  of  Luttrell's 
lesser  effort  of  "  Crockford  House,"  even  if  it 
came  within  our  scheme.  The  defect  of  tedi- 
ousness  is  more  conspicuous  in  it  than  in  the 
former  work,  although  the  motive  —  denun- 
ciation of  the  prevailing  vice  of  Play  —  is  a 
better  one.  But  the  author  seems  to  have 
had  a  doubt  about  making  it  public,  since, 
according  to  Moore,  he  consulted  Lord  Sef- 
ton,  Mr.  Greville,  and  others,  as  to  the  expe- 
diency of  a  man  of  the  town  publishing  such 
an  attack  upon  the  high  priest  of  the  gam- 
ing table, —  "a  deference  to  society,"  says 
Moore  (rather  unexpectedly,  considering  his 
antecedents),  "  for  which  society  will  hardly 
thank  him."  With  "Crockford  House"  are 
printed  some  lines  on  Rome  and  the  dirtiness  of 
that  Imperial  City.  A  rhyming  tour  de  force 
on  "  Burnham  Beeches,"  and  a  few  more  of 
Luttrell's  fugitive  verses  are  included  in  the 
late  Mr.  Locker  Lampson's  "  Lyra  Elegantia- 
rum,"  where  is  also  to  be  found  the  admirable 
little  epigram  upon  Miss  Ellen  Tree,  which 
has  already  been  reproduced  in  these  pages.1 
Here,  from  the  same  collection,  is  a  graver 
specimen  :  — 

1  See  ante,  "  The  Author  of  Monsieur  Tonson." 


218  Miscellanies. 

"  O  Death,  thy  certainty  is  such, 

The  thought  of  thee  so  fearful, 
That,  musing,  I  have  wondered  much 
How  men  are  ever  cheerful." 

There  is  a  compactness  about  this  which 
makes  us  wish  for  some  other  brief  examples  of 
Luttrell's  serious  style.  It  is  his  plans  that  are 
long,  not  his  art.  If,  instead  of  amplifying 
"  Lydia,  die  per  omnes,"  he  had  simply  trans- 
lated it,  or  "  Vixi  puellis,"  or  "  Vitas  hinnuleo," 
or  any  of  the  lighter  of  Horace's  odes,  we  should 
have  had  nearly  perfect  versions,  for  no  man 
could  have  done  them  better. 

We  add  one  more  of  his  lesser  pieces,  because 
the  first  lines  alone  are  generally  quoted.  They 
are  the  quatrains  to  Moore  about  his  "  Lallah 
Rookh."  Luttrell  wrote  them  in  the  name  of 
Rogers,  whose  "  Human  Life"  Lord  Lauderdale 
was  said  to  have  by  heart :  — 

"  I  'm  told,  dear  Moore,  your  lays  are  sung 

(Can  it  be  true,  you  lucky  man  ?) 
By  moonlight  in  the  Persian  tongue, 
Along  the  streets  of  Ispahan. 

"  *T  is  hard,  but  one  reflexion  cures, 
At  once,  a  jealous  poet's  smart : 
The  Persians  have  translated  yours, 
But  Lauderdale  has  mine  by  heart." 

Not  the  least  piquant  thing  connected  with 
this  little  jeu  d'esprit,  so  carefully  transferred  to 


Luttrell's  "Letters  to  Julia."           219 

his  Preface  and  Diary  by  the  author  of  the 
"  Irish  Melodies,11  is,  that  Luttrell's  informant 
was  none  other  than  Thomas  Moore  himself.1 

1  Henry  Luttrell  was  a  natural  son  of  Colonel  Luttrell, 
afterwards  second  Earl  of  Carhampton.  He  died  as  late 
as  December,  1851.  Those  who  desire  further  particulars 
concerning  this  "  Old  Society  Wit"  will  do  well  to  con- 
sult a  most  interesting  paper  with  that  title  in  Temple 
Bar  for  January,  1895,  by  a  charming  writer  of  reminis- 
cences, the  late  Mrs.  Andrew  Crosse. 


CHANGES   AT  CHARING   CROSS. 

T     OOKING  from  that  "  coign  of  vantage," 

J y     the  portico  of  the  National  Gallery,  upon 

what  Peel  called  "  the  finest  site  in  Europe,"  it 
is  impossible  not  to  think  of  its  vicissitudes. 
With  the  exception  of  St.  Martin's  Church, 
which  is  comparatively  modern,  the  only  an- 
tiquity now  left  to  link  the  present  with  the  past 
is  the  statue  of  Charles  I.,  riding  unhasting,  un- 
resting, to  his  former  Palace  of  Westminster, 
and  dating  from  a  day  when  Trafalgar  Square 
was  but  an  irregular  range  of  houses  surrounding 
a  royal  mews.  Only  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago 
stood  in  its  vicinity  an  older  relic  still.  If  the 
stones  that  formed  the  fine  Jacobean  frontage 
of  Northumberland  House  could  have  spoken, 
they  would  have  pleaded  that  they  knew  of  a 
remoter  time  when,  in  place  of  the  royal  martyr 
proclaiming  from  his  pedestal,  in  Waller's  turn- 
coat line,  that 

"  Rebellion,  though  successful,  is  but  vain," 

had  risen  the  time-honoured  cross  which  marked 
the  last  halting  place  of  Queen  Eleanor's  body 


Changes  at  Charing  Cross.  221 

in  its  progress  to  the  Abbey.  The  old  Cross 
again  had  more  ancient  memories  than  North- 
umberland House.  It  could  recall  a  falconry  — 
not  unhaunted  of  a  certain  rhyming  Clerk  of 
Works  called  Geoffrey  Chaucer — which  was 
long  anterior  to  the  royal  mews  ;  and  it  remem- 
bered how  — 

"  Ere  yet,  in  scorn  of  Peter's  pence, 

And  number'd  bead,  and  shrift, 

Bluff  Harry  broke  into  the  spence 

And  turn'd  the  cowls  adrift,"  — 

the  hospital  of  St.  Mary  Rounceval  had  preceded 
the  great  palace  of  the  Percies. 

In  any  retrospect  of  Charing  Cross,  Queen 
Eleanor's  monument  forms  a  convenient  start- 
ing point,  and  from  Ralph  Agas's  well-known 
survey  of  1592  we  get  a  fair  idea  of  its  environ- 
ment in  the  reign  of  Elizabeth.  At  this  date 
there  were,  comparatively  speaking,  few  build- 
ings in  its  neighbourhood.  On  the  river  side, 
indeed,  houses  straggled  from  the  Strand  towards 
Whitehall  ;  but  St.  Martin's  was  actually  "  in 
the  fields,"  Spring  Gardens  was  as  open  as  "  S4 
Jemes  Parke,"  and  where  to-day  stand  Covent 
Garden  and  Her  Majesty's  Theatre,  laundresses 
laid  their  clothes  to  dry.  Along  Hedge  Lane, 
which  began  at  the  present  Union  Club  and  fol- 


222  Miscellanies. 

lowed  the  line  of  Dorset  Place  and  Whitcomb 
Street,  you  might,  if  so  minded,  carry  your 
Corinna  through  green  pastures  to  eat  tarts  at 
Hampstead  or  Highgate,  passing,  it  may  be,  on 
the  road,  Master  Ben  Jonson  from  Hartshorne 
Lane  (now  Northumberland  Street),  unconscious 
for  the  moment  of  any  other  "  humour"  in  life 
than  the  unlimited  consumption  of  blackberries. 
By  the  windmill  at  St.  Giles's  you  might  find 
him  flying  his  kite,  or  (and  why  not,  since  the 
child  is  father  to  the  man  ?)  displaying  prema- 
turely his  "  Roman  infirmity  "  of  boasting  to  his 
ragged  playmates  of  the  parish  school. 

But  to  the  sober  antiquary  the  pleasures  of 
imagination  are  forbidden  ;  and  the  Cross  itself 
has  yet  to  be  described.  Unfortunately,  there 
are  no  really  trustworthy  representations  of  it, 
and  even  its  designer's  name  is  uncertain.  It 
was  long  ascribed  to  Pietro  Cavallini,  to  whom 
tradition  also  attributes  the  monument  of  Henry 
III.  in  Westminster  Abbey.  What  is  undoubted, 
however,  is  that  it  was  one  of  several  similar 
crosses  erected  by  the  executors  of  Eleanor  of 
Castile  ;  that  it  was  begun  by  one  Richard  de 
Crundale,  cementarius,  and  after  his  death  con- 
tinued by  another  of  the  family;  and  that  its 
material  came  from  Caen  in  Normandy,  and 
Corfe  in  Dorsetshire.  From  Agas's  map  it 


Changes  at  Charing  Cross.  223 

seems  to  have  been  octagonal  in  shape  with 
tiers  of  niches ;  and  it  was  decorated  with 
paintings  and  gilt  metal  figures  modelled  by 
Alexander  Le  Imaginator.  It  stood  from  1296 
until,  by  vote  of  May  the  jrd,  1643,  the  Long 
Parliament,  in  the  same  iconoclastic  spirit  which 
prompted  the  removal  of  the  "Golden  Cross" 
sign  as  "superstitious  and  idolatrous,"  decreed 
its  demolition.  "The  parliament,"  says  a  con- 
temporary Royalist  ballad,  still  to  be  found  in 
Percy's  '  Reliques,' 

"  '  The  parliament  to  vote  it  down 

Conceived  it  very  fitting, 
For  fear  it  should  fall,  and  kill  them  all, 

In  the  house  as  they  were  sitting. 
They  were  told,  God-wot,  it  had  a  plot,1 

Which  made  them  so  hard-hearted, 
To  give  command,  it  should  not  stand, 

But  be  taken  down  and  carted.'  " 

Other  verses  bewail  its  disappearance  as  a 
familiar  landmark  :  — 

"  Undone,  undone,  the  lawyers  are,     ' 

They  wander  about  the  towne, 
Nor  can  find  the  way  to  Westminster, 
Now  Charing-Cros  is  downe." 

1  This  was  Waller's  plot  of  June,  1643, to  disarm  the 
London  militia,  etc.,  for  which  Tompkins  and  Chaloner 
were  executed. 


224  Miscellanies. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  was  not  actually  "  taken 
down  and  carted"  till  the  summer  of  1647. 
Part  of  its  stones,  says  Charles's  biographer, 
William  Lilly,  went  to  pave  Whitehall,  and  oth- 
ers were  fashioned  into  knife-hafts,  "which, 
being  well  polished,  looked  like  marble."  Sic 
transit  gloria  mundi! 

Its  site  remained  unoccupied  for  seven  and 
twenty  years.  But  here,  in  the  interval,  the 
regicides  met  their  fate.  Harrison,  Cromwell's 
chaplain  Peters,  John  Jones,  Carew,  and  others, 
all  suffered  "•  at  the  railed  space  where  Charing 
Cross  stood."  Pepys,  between  an  account  of 
the  wantonness  of  Mrs.  Palmer  and  the  episode 
of  "  a  very  pretty  lady"  who  cried  out  at  the 
playhouse  "to  see  Desdemona  smothered,"  has 
the  following  entry  of  Harrison's  death,  which 
he  witnessed:  —  "i^th  [October,  1660].  I 
went  out  to  Charing  Cross  to  see  Major-general 
Harrison  hanged,  drawn,  and  quartered  ;  which 
was  done  there,  he  looking  as  cheerful  as  any 
man  cou-ld  do  in  that  condition.  He  was  pres- 
ently cut  down,  and  his  head  and  heart  shown  to 
the  people,  at  which  there  was  great  shouts  of 
joy.  It  is  said,  that  he  said  that  he  was  sure  to 
come  shortly  at  the  right  hand  of  Christ  to  judge 
them  that  now  had  judged  him  ;  and  that  his 
wife  do  expect  his  coming  again.  Thus  it  was 


Changes  at  Charing  Cross.  225 

my  chance  to  see  the  King  beheaded  at  White 
Hall,  and  to  see  the  first  blood  shed  in  revenge 
for  the  King  at  Charing  Cross." 

Grave  John  Evelyn  has  also  his  record  :  — 
"  17  [October,  1660].  Scot,  Scroope,  Cook, 
and  Jones  suffered  for  reward  of  their  iniquities 
at  Charing  Crosse,  in  sight  of  the  place  where 
they  put  to  death  their  natural  Prince,  and  in 
the  presence  of  the  King  his  sonn,  whom  they 
also  sought  to  kill.  I  saw  not  their  execution; 
but  met  their  quarters  mangl'd  and  cutt  and 
reeking  as  they  were  brought  from  the  gallows 
in  baskets  on  the  hurdle.  Oh,  the  miraculous 
providence  of  God!" 

For  further  particulars  of  these  dismal  butch- 
eries the  reader  is  referred  to  the  State  Trials. 
In  the  years  to  come,  less  gruesome  sights  suc- 
ceeded. From  the  overseers'  books  of  St. 
Martin's,  Mr.  Peter  Cunningham  discovered 
entries  of  sums  paid  in  1666  and  1667  by  "  Pun- 
chinello. ye  Italian  popet-player  for  his  Booth 
at  Charing  Cross,"  and  in  1668  there  are  simi- 
lar records  for  the  "  playhouse  "  of  a  "  Mounsr. 
Devone."  Then,  in  1674,  the  present  "noble 
equestrian  statue "  as  Walpole  styles  it,  was 
erected,  not  too  promptly,  by  Charles  II. 

Its  story  is  singular,  —  almost  as  singular  as 
that  of  the  statue  of  the  Merry  Monarch  himself, 
'5 


226  Miscellanies. 

which  loyal  Sir  Robert  Viner,  "  Alderman,  Knight 
and  Baronet,"  put  up  in  the  old  Stocks  Market. 
It  appears  to  have  been  executed  about  1633  by 
Hubert  Le  Soeur,  a  pupil  of  John  of  Bologna, 
for  the  Lord  High  Treasurer  Weston,  who  in- 
tended it  to  embellish  his  garden  at  Roehampton. 
By  the  terms  of  the  commission  it  was  to  be  of 
brass,  a  foot  larger  than  life,  and  the  sculptor 
"was  to  take  advice  of  his  Maj.  (Charles  I.) 
riders  of  greate  horses,  as  well  for  the  shape  of 
the  horse  and  action  as  for  the  graceful  shape 
and  action  of  his  Maj.  figure  on  the  same." 
Before  the  beginning  of  the  Civil  War,  according 
to  Walpole,  the  statue,  cast  but  not  erected,  was 
sold  by  the  Parliament  to  John  Rivett,  brazier, 
dwelling  at  the  Dial  near  Holborn  Conduit, 
who  was  strictly  enjoined  to  break  it  up.  Rivett, 
whose  "faith  was  large  in  time,"  carefully 
buried  it  instead,  and  ingenuously  exhibited 
some  broken  brass  in  earnest  of  its  destruction. 
Report  further  says  that,  making  capital  out  of 
both  parties,  he  turned  these  mythic  fragments 
into  knife  and  fork  handles,  which  the  Royalists 
bought  eagerly  as  relics,  and  the  Puritans  as 
tokens  of  the  downfall  of  a  despot.  In  any  case 
there  is  evidence  to  show  that  the  statue  was 
still  in  Rivett's  possession  in  1660,  and  it  is 
assumed  that  it  passed  from  him  or  his  family  to 


Changes  at  Charing  Cross.  227 

the  second  Charles.  Strype  says  that  he  pre- 
sented it  to  the  King,  which  is  not  unlikely. 
The  pedestal,  finely  carved  with  cupids,  palms, 
armour,  and  so  forth,  is  attributed  to  Grinling 
Gibbons.  Somewhere  near  it  was  the  Pillory 
where,  every  loth  of  August,  for  several  suc- 
cessive years,  stood  the  infamous  Titus  Gates. 
Edmund  Curll,  too  (upon  that  principle  which 
makes  Jack  Sheppard  one  of  the  "  eminent " 
persons  buried  in  St.  Martin's),  was  once  its 
"distinguished"  occupant,  for  one  of  his  scan- 
dalous publications ;  and  later  Parsons  of  the 
Cock  Lane  Ghost  suffered  here  those  amenities 
so  neatly  described  by  Robert  Lloyd  in  his 
"  Epistle  to  Churchill  "  :  — 

"  Thus,  should  a  wooden  collar  deck 
Some  woefull  'squire's  embarrass'd  neck, 
When  high  above  the  crowd  he  stands 
With  equidistant  sprawling  hands, 
And  without  hat,  politely  bare, 
Pops  out  his  head  to  take  the  air; 
The  mob  his  kind  acceptance  begs, 
Of  dirt,  and  stones,  and  addle-eggs." 

To  the  right  of  King  Charles's  statue,  upon  a 
site  now  traversed  diagonally  by  Northumberland 
Avenue,  stood,  until  1874,  the  last  of  the  great 
riverside  mansions,  Northumberland  House. 
Its  facade  extended  from  the  statue  towards 


228  Miscellanies. 

Northumberland  Street,  and  its  gardens  went 
back  to  Scotland  Yard,  into  which  it  had  a  gate. 
Northampton  House,  as  it  was  first  called, 
was  built  about  1605  for  Henry  Howard,  Earl 
of  Northampton,  by  Bernard  Jansen  and  Gerard 
Christmas  —  Christmas,  it  is  supposed,  being 
responsible  for  the  florid  gateway  or  "  frontis- 
piece." From  the  Earl  of  Northampton  it 
passed  to  the  Suffolks,  and  changed  its  name 
to  Suffolk  House,  a  name  which  it  retained 
until  1670,  when  becoming  the  property  of  the 
Percies  it  was  again  re-christened.  Londoners, 
except  upon  such  special  occasions  as  Exhibition 
years  and  the  like,  saw  little  of  the  place  beyond 
the  fafade.  Its  original  plan  was  a  quadrangle, 
uncompleted  at  first  on  the  garden-side.  Alger- 
non Percy,  tenth  Earl  of  Northumberland,  added 
a  new  river-front,  and  a  stone  flight  of  stairs, 
which  Mr.  Evelyn  regarded  as  clumsy  and 
''without  any  neat  invention."  In  the  interior 
its  chief  glory  was  a  double  state-staircase  with 
marble  steps.  There  was  also  a  state-gallery  of 
magnificent  proportions,  a  drawing-room  deco- 
rated by  Angelica  Kauffman,  and  a  tapestry- 
chamber  by  Zuccarelli.  The  pictures  which, 
with  the  wonderful  stiff-tailed  leaden  lion  so 
long  familiar  to  passers  by,  are  now  transferred 
to  Sion  House  at  Isleworth,  including  Titian's 


Changes  at  Charing  Cross.  229 

famous  Cornaro  family  (Evelyn's  "  Venetian 
Senators"),  and  a  number  of  minor  masterpieces. 
One  of  the  show-curiosities  was  a  Sevres  vase 
nine  feet  high,  presented  to  the  second  Duke  of 
Northumberland  by  Charles  X.  of  France. 

It  would  be  easy  to  accumulate  anecdote 
around  this  ancient  dwelling-place.  From  this 
"  house  with  stairs  "  by  Charing  Cross  set  out 
that  merry  marriage  procession  of  Boyle  and 
Howard,  which  Suckling  has  immortalised  in 
the  "  Ballad  on  a  Wedding;"  and  hence,  too, 
Mr.  Horace  Walpole,  with  a  hackney-coach  full 
of  persons  of  condition  fresh  from  the  opera, 
started  to  interview  the  Cock  Lane  Ghost. 
Here  again,  in  the  fire  of  1780,  great  part  of  the 
library  of  the  Duke's  chaplain  and  relative,  Dr. 
Percy,  was  destroyed  in  his  apartments,  where, 
doubtless,  he  often  received  Reynolds  and  John- 
son. Goldsmith,  also,  among  others,  made  one 
very  characteristic  visit  to  the  same  spot,  though 
not  on  this  occasion  as  the  guest  of  the  Bishop 
of  Dromore.  Let  him  tell  the  story  in  his  own 
words,  apud  Washington  Irving  :  — 

"  I  dressed  myself  in  the  best  manner  I  could, 
and,  after  studying  some  compliments  I  thought 
necessary  on  such  an  occasion,  proceeded  to 
Northumberland  House,  and  acquainted  the  ser- 
vants that  I  had  particular  business  with  the 


2  jo  Miscellanies. 

duke.  They  showed  me  into  an  ante-chamber, 
where,  after  waiting  some  time,  a  gentleman, 
very  elegantly  dressed,  made  his  appearance  ; 
taking  him  for  the  duke,  I  delivered  all  the  fine 
things  I  had  composed  in  order  to  compliment 
him  on  the  honour  he  had  done  me  ;  when,  to 
my  great  astonishment,  he  told  me  I  had  mis- 
taken him  for  his  master,  who  would  see  me  im- 
mediately. At  that  instant  the  duke  came  into 
the  apartment,  and  I  was  so  confounded  on  the 
occasion,  that  I  wanted  words  barely  sufficient 
to  express  the  sense  I  entertained  of  the  duke's 
politeness,  and  went  away  exceedingly  chagrined 
at  the  blunder  I  had  committed."1 

Fronting  Northumberland  House,  a  little  to 
the  left,  and  at  some  distance  from  the  site  of  the 
present  hotel  of  the  same  name,  stood,  until 
the  advent  of  railroads  brought  about  its  down- 
fall as  a  posting-house,  that  older  Golden  Cross,2 
whose  idolatrous  sign  scandalised  the  Puritan 
House  of  Commons.  But  the  sign  must  have 
been  soon  restored,  for  it  is  distinguishable  in  Ca- 
naletto's  view  of  1753,  though  the  carriage  at  the 

1  "Oliver  Goldsmith:  a  Biography,"  1849,  P-  J66- 

2  In  that  half-authentic,  half-romantic  book,  the  "  Wine 
and  Walnuts  "  of  Ephraim  Hardcastle  (Pyne  the  Artist), 
he  makes  Hogarth  catch  a  cold  while  sketching  from  the 
inn  window  the  pageant  of  the  proclamation  of  George  III. 
at  Charing  Cross. 


Changes  at  Charing  Cross.  231 

door  probably  hides  the  long  water-trough  which, 
sixty  years  since,  old  Londoners  still  remem- 
bered as  giving  the  place  something  of  the  air  of 
a  country  inn.  From  the  Golden  Cross,  houses 
extended  northward  to  St.  Martin's  Church  — 
Duncannon  Street  being  as  yet  to  come.  Trafal- 
gar Square  and  the  space  now  occupied  by  the 
National  and  National  Portrait  Galleries  was 
covered,  as  far  back  as  Hemings'  Row,  by  build- 
ings surrounding  the  King's  or  royal  mews.  In 
the  days  before  Agas's  map  this  had  been  a  fal- 
conry, dating  from  Richard  II.  or  earlier;  but 
in  1534,  when  Henry  VIII.'s  stables  at  Loms- 
bery  (Bloomsbury)  were  fired  and  burned,  the 
royal  stables  were  transferred  to  the  buildings  at 
Charing  Cross,  which,  nevertheless,  retained 
their  old  name  of  mews  (i.  e.f  a  mewing  place) 
which  they  first  had  "  of  the  King's  falcons  there 
kept."  Here,  in  the  Caroline  days,  the  famous 
stallion  "Rowley"  "champed  golden  grain" 
like  the  horses  in  the  "  Iliad,"  and  gave  his  nick- 
name to  a  king.  Here,  too,  M.  St.  Antoine 
taught  the  noble  art  of  horsemanship.  In  1732, 
William  Kent  rebuilt  the  facade.  At  this  date, 
as  shown  in  a  plan  in  the  British  Museum, 
dated  1690,  it  still  consisted  of  the  "  Great 
Mews,"  the  "  Green  Mews,"  and  the  "  Back 
Mews."  It  continued  to  be  used  for  stabling 


232  Miscellanies. 

until  1824,  when  the  royal  stud,  gilt  coach,  and 
other  paraphernalia  were  transferred  to  Pimlico. 
In  1830,  after  serving  as  a  temporary  shelter  to 
Mr.  Cross's  menagerie,  then  ousted  from  Exeter 
Change,  and  to  the  homeless  Public  Records  of 
Great  Britain,  it  was  pulled  down.  Not  many 
traditions  haunt  its  past  which  need  a  mention 
here.  Its  northeastern  side,  if  we  may  trust 
Gay's  "  Trivia,"  was  a  chosen  resort  of  thieves 
and  gamblers.  "  Careful  Observers  "  (he  says), 
"  studious  of  the  Town," 

"  Pass  by  the  Meuse,  nor  try  the  Thimble's  Cheats;  " 

and  it  may  be  observed  that  the  ill-famed  rookery, 
known  in  Ben  Jonson's  day  as  the  "  Bermu- 
das "  and  later,  by  convenient  euphemism,  as 
the  "  Ctibbee  Islands,"  was  close  to  St.  Mar- 
tin's Church,  where  it  survived  until  1829.  At 
the  Upper  Mews-Gate  stood  a  convivial  house 
of  call,  celebrated  in  song  by  "  bright  broken 
Maginn;"1  and  hard  by,  from  1750  to  1790, 

1  "  I  miss  already,  with  a  tear, 

The  Mews-Gate  public  house, 
Where  many  a  gallant  grenadier 

Did  lustily  carouse  ; 
Alas  !  Macadam's  droughty  dust 

That  honoured  spot  doth  fill, 
Where  they  were  wont  the  ale  robust 

In  the  King's  name  to  swill." 


Changes  at  Charing  Cross.  233 

"  Honest  Tom  Payne  "  kept  the  little  old  book- 
shop, "  in  the  shape  of  an  L,"  once  so  well 
known  to  book-lovers  in  the  last  century.1 

Towards  1829-30  the  neighbourhood  of 
Charing  Cross  began  to  assume  something  of 
its  present  aspect.  Already,  four  years  earlier, 
the  College  of  Physicians,  leaving  its  home  in 
Warwick  Lane,  had  taken  up  its  abode  in  a 
handsome  building  at  the  bottom  of  Dorset 
Place,  close  by  the  newly-erected  Union  Club. 
Then,  about  1830,  the  ground  was  cleared  for 
Trafalgar  Square,  and  the  CYibbee  Islands  and 
the  rookeries  were  "  blotted  from  the  things 
that  be."  In  1832,  the  present  National  Gal- 
lery was  begun.  Nelson's  Column  followed,  in 
1840-9,  and  then,  many  years  after,  was  finally 
completed  by  the  addition  of  Landseer's  lions. 
Since  the  National  Gallery  first  became  the 
laughing-stock  of  cockneys,  it  has  been  more 
than  once  enlarged  ;  and  even  at  the  present 
moment  further  extensions  at  the  back,  of  con- 
siderable importance  to  the  picture-seer,  are  said 
to  be  in  contemplation.  But  it  is  needless  to 
dwell  at  any  length  upon  the  present  aspect  of 
the  place.  It  is  too  modern  for  the  uses  of  the 
antiquary  ;  and  it  may  be  doubted  if  time  can 

1  See  "The  Two  Paynes"  in  "Eighteenth  Century 
Vignettes,"  Second  Series,  pp.  199-202. 


2^4  Miscellanies. 

ever  make  it  venerable.  In'  justice  to  its  unfor- 
tunate architect,  Wilkins,  it  must,  nevertheless, 
be  added  that  his  work  was  done  under  most 
unfavourable  restrictions.  He  was  vexatiously 
hampered  as  to  space,  and  Carlton  House  hav- 
ing been  demolished,  it  was  an  express  condi- 
tion that  he  should  avail  himself  of  its  fine 
Corinthian  portico. 

The  only  other  building  near  Charing  Cross 
which  deserves  notice  is  St.  Martin's  Church. 
This,  however,  will  better  be  reserved  for  treat- 
ment on  some  future  occasion  in  conjunction 
with  St.  Martin's  Lane.  But  Spring  Garden, 
or  Gardens,  part  of  which  has  already  disap- 
peared under  the  new  Admiralty  buildings,  re- 
quires and  deserves  a  final  paragraph.  It  lies  to 
the  southwest  of  the  Cross,  and  according  to 
old  definitions  had  a  frontage  extending  from 
the  end  of  the  Haymarket  to  Wallingford  House 
(the  present  Admiralty).  In  the  days  of  James  I. 
and  Charles  I.  it  was  a  pleasure-ground  attached 
to  Whitehall  Palace,  taking  its  name  from  one  of 
those  jets  d'eau,  the  delight  of  seventeenth  cen- 
tury topiarians,  which  suddenly  sprinkled  the 
visitor  who  unwittingly  pressed  it  with  his  foot. 
It  contained  butts,  a  bathing-pond,  and  appar- 
ently part  of  the  St.  James's  Park  menagerie, 
since  the  State  papers  contain  an  order  under 


Changes  at  Charing  Cross.  23$ 

date  of  the  }ist  January,  1626,  for  payment  to 
Philip,  Earl  of  Montgomery,  of  £72,  <,s,  lod, 
for  "  keeping  the  Spring-Gardens  and  the  beasts 
and  fowls  there."  One  of  the  favourite  amuse- 
ments of  the  place  was  bowling,  and  it  was 
while  Charles  was  watching  the  players  with 
his  favourite  Steenie,  who  lived  at  this  date  in 
Wallingford  House,  that  an  oft  related  incident 
took  place  :  —  "  The  Duke  put  on  his  hat ;  one 
Wilson,  a  Scotchman,  first  kissing  the  Duke's 
hand,  snatched  it  off,  saying,  '  Off  with  your 
hat  before  the  King  ! '  Buckingham,  not  apt  to 
restrain  his  feelings,  kicked  the  Scotchman ; 
but  the  King,  interfering,  said,  '  Let  him  alone, 
George  ;  he  is  either  mad  or  a  fool.'  '  No, 
sir,'  replied  the  Scotchman,  '  I  am  a  sober  man; 
and  if  your  majesty  would  give  me  leave  I  will 
tell  you  that  of  this  man  which  many  know,  and 
none  dare  speak.' " 

Whether  his  majesty  permitted  the  proffered 
revelation,  so  significant  of  the  popular  estimate 
of  Buckingham,  history  has  not  recorded.  But 
the  garden  at  this  time  (1628)  must  have  been 
private,  for  it  was  not  until  two  years  later  that 
Charles  threw  it  open  by  proclamation,  appoint- 
ing one  Simon  Osbaldeston  "keeper  of  the 
King's  Garden  called  the  Spring  Garden  and  of 
His  Majesty's  Bowling-green  there."  Four 


236  Miscellanies. 

years  after,  it  had  grown  so  "  scandalous  and 
insufferable "  a  resort  that  he  closed  it  again. 
It  must,  however,  have  been  reopened,  for  in 
June,  1649,  Mr.  Evelyn  tells  us  that  he  "  treated 
divers  Ladies  of  my  relations,  in  Spring  Gar- 
den ;  "  and  though  Cromwell  shut  it  up  cnce 
more,  it  could  not  have  been  for  long,  as  ten 
years  after  Evelyn's  date  it  was  still  offering 
its  sheltering  thickets  to  love-makers,  and  its 
neats'  tongues  and  bad  Rhenish  to  wandering 
epicures. 

With  the  Restoration  ends  its  history  as  a 
pleasure-ground.  To  the  disgust  of  the  dwell- 
ers at  Charing  Cross,  houses  began  to  arise 
upon  it ;  and  its  frequenters  migrated  to  the 
newer  "  Spring  Garden  "  at  Vauxhall.  By  1772, 
when  Lord  Berkeley  was  permitted  to  build 
over  the  so-called  ''  Wilderness,"  its  last  traces 
had  disappeared.  But  "the  whirligig  of  time 
brings  in  his  revenges,"  and  Lord  Berkeley's 
house  in  its  turn  has  now  made  way  for  the 
office  of  the  Metropolitan  Board  of  Works,  and 
that  again  for  the  London  County  Council. 

As  a  locality  Spring  Gardens  —  the  Spring 
Gardens  of  brick  and  mortar  —  has  been  un- 
usually favoured  with  distinguished  inhabitants. 
Here  Cromwell  is  said  to  have  had  a  house  ; 
and  it  was  "at  one  Thomson's,"  next  door  to 


Changes  at  Charing  Cross.  237 

the  Bull  Head  Tavern,  in  the  thoroughfare  lead- 
ing to  the  park,  that  his  Latin  secretary,  John 
Milton,  wrote  his  "  Joannis  Philippi  Angli 
Responsio,"  etc.  Colley  Gibber's  home,  for 
several  years,  was  hard  by ;  so  also  was  the 
lodging  occupied  by  the  author  of  the  "  Sea- 
sons," when  he  first  came  to  London  to  nego- 
tiate his  poem  of  "Winter."  In  Buckingham 
Court  lived  and  died  sprightly  Mrs.  Centlivre, 
whose  husband  (her  third)  was  yeoman  of  the 
mouth  to  Anne  and  George  I.  Locket's  ordi- 
nary—  the  "  Lackets  "  of  my  Lord  Foppington 
and  the  "  stap-my-vitals"  fine  gentlemen  of 
Vanbrugh's  day  —  stood  on  the  site  of  Drum- 
mond's  Bank.  Two  doors  from  it,  towards 
Buckingham  Court,  was  the  famous  "  Rummer  " 
Tavern  kept  by  Matthew  Prior's  uncle,  Samuel 
Pryor,  also  or  formerly  landlord  of  that  Rhenish 
Wine  House  in  Cannon  Row  where  Dorset 
first  discovered  the  clever  young  student  of 
Horace  whom  he  helped  to  turn  into  a  states- 
man and  ambassador.1  The  "Rummer"  ap- 
pears in  Hogarth's  "Night"  ("  Four  Times 
of  the  Day,"  1738),  which  gives  a  view  of 
the  statue  with  the  houses  behind.  Hogarth's 
"  Rummer,"  however,  is  on  the  left,  whereas 

1  See  Matthew   Prior,  in  "  Eighteenth  Century  Vig- 
nettes," Third  Series,  p.  229. 


238  Miscellanies. 

the  tavern  (according  to  Cunningham)  was,  after 
1710,  removed  to  the  right  or  Northumber- 
land House  side.  Probably  in  the  plate,  as 
in  the  one  of  Covent  Garden  in  the  same 
series,  the  view  was  reversed  in  the  process  of 
engraving. 

Hogarth's  name  recalls  another  memory.  It 
was  in  an  auctioneer's  room  in  Spring  Gardens 
(now  part  of  the  offices  of  the  London  County 
Council)  that  the  Society  of  Artists  of  Great 
Britain  held  their  famous  second  exhibition  of 
1761,  for  the  catalogue  of  which  Wale  and 
Hogarth  made  designs.  Hogarth  was  also  a 
prominent  exhibitor,  sending,  among  other  oil 
paintings,  "The  Lady's  Last  Stake"  (Mr. 
Huth's),  the  "  Election  Entertainment"  (Soane 
Museum),  and  the  ill-fated  "  Sigismunda,"  the 
last  of  which  is  now  gaining,  in  the  National 
Gallery,  some  of  the  reputation  which  was  de- 
nied to  it  in  the  painter's  lifetime. 


JOHN   GAY. 

NO  very  material  addition,  in  the  way  of 
supplementary  information,  can  now  be 
made  to  the  frequently  reprinted  "Life  of  Gay" 
in  Johnson's  "  Poets,"  or  to  the  genial  and 
kindly  sketch  in  Thackeray's  "English  Hu- 
mourists."1 Gay  was  born  at  Barnstaple  in 
1685,  and  baptised  at  the  Old  Church  of  that 
town  on  the  i6th  September.  He  came  of 
an  ancient  but  impoverished  family,  being  the 
younger  son  of  William  Gay,  who  lived  at  the 
"  Red  Cross,"  a  house  in  Joy  Street,  which, 
judging  from  the  church-rate  paid  by  its  occu- 
pants, must  have  been  one  of  the  best  of  the 

1  This  is  still  practically  true.  But  in  an  excellent  edi- 
tion of  Gay's  "  Poetical  Works,"  prepared  for  the  "  Muses' 
Library,"  in  1893,  the  late  John  Underhill,  a  Barnstaple 
man  and  a  Gay  enthusiast,  besides  making  certain  bio- 
graphical rectifications,  contrived  to  discover  a  few  new 
facts.  "  Some  details  that  have  not  been  known  to  former 
writers  "  were  also  supplied  by  Mr.  George  A.  Aitken  in 
an  interesting  paper  prompted  by  Mr.  Underbill's  volumes, 
and  contributed  to  the  Westminster  Review  for  January, 
1894. 


240  Miscellanies. 

Barnstaple  dwellings.  He  lost  his  father  in 
1695,  his  mother  —  whose  maiden  name  was 
Hanmer  —  having  died  in  the  previous  year. 
He  thus  became  an  orphan  at  the  early  age  of 
ten,  and  in  all  probability,  fell  into  the  care  of 
a  Barnstaple  uncle,  Thomas  Gay.  He  was  edu- 
cated at  the  free  grammar  school  of  his  native 
place,  where  his  master  was  one  Rayner.  after- 
wards succeeded  by  the  "Robert  Luck,  A.  M.," 
whose  "  Miscellany  of  New  Poems"  was  pub- 
lished in  1736  (four  years  after  Gay's  death)  by 
Edward  Cave.  One  of  the  pieces  was  a  Latin 
version  of  Prior's  "Female  Phaeton,"  and  its 
author,  in  an  English  introduction  to  his  work, 
inscribed  to  Gay's  patron,  Charles  Douglas, 
Duke  of  Queensberry  and  Dover,  sought 
to  associate  himself  with  his  pupil's  metrical 
proficiency. 

"  O  Queensberry  !  cou'd  happy  Gay 

This  Off 'ring  to  thee  bring, 
'Tis  his,  my  Lord  (he  'd  smiling  say) 
Who  taught  your  Gay  to  sing." 

It  is,  moreover,  asserted  that  Gay's  dramatic 
turn  was  stimulated  by  the  plays  which  the 
pupils  at  Barnstaple  were  in  the  habit  of  per- 
forming under  this  rhyming  pedagogue.  Of  his 
schooldays,  however,  nothing  is  known  with 


John  Gay.  241 

precision ;  but  it  is  clear  from  his  subsequent 
career  that  he  somewhere  obtained  more  than  a 
bowing  acquaintance  with  the  classics.  There 
is  still  preserved,  in  the  "  Forster  Library"  at 
South  Kensington,  a  large  paper  copy  of  Mait- 
taire's  "Horace"  (Tonson  and  Watts,  1715), 
which  contains  his  autograph,  and  is  copiously 
annotated  in  his  beautiful  handwriting.  This  of 
itself  should  be  sufficient  to  refute  the  aspersions 
sometimes  cast  upon  his  scholarship  ;  for  it  af- 
fords unanswerable  evidence  that,  even  at  thirty, 
and  perhaps  at  a  much  later  period,  he  remained 
a  diligent  student  of  the  charming  lyrist  and 
satirist,  who,  above  all  others,  commends  him- 
self to  the  attention  of  idle  men.  In  his  boy- 
hood, however,  it  must  be  assumed  that  Gay's 
indolence  was  more  strongly  developed  than  his 
application,  for  his  friends  could  find  no  better 
opening  for  him  than  that  of  apprentice  to  a 
London  silk  mercer.  With  this  employment  he 
was  speedily  dissatisfied.  Dr.  Hill  Burton,  in 
his  "  History  of  the  Reign  of  Queen  Anne," 
implies  that  he  ran  away  ;  but  there  is  nothing 
to  show  that  he  took  any  step  of  so  energetic  a 
character.  His  nephew,  the  Rev.  Joseph  Bailer, 
in  the  little  publication  entitled  il  Gay's  Chair." 
explains  that.  "  not  being  able  to  bear  the  con- 
finement of  a  shop,"  his  uncle  became  depressed 
16 


242  Miscellanies. 

in  spirits  and  health,  and  therefore  returned  to 
his  native  town,  taking  up  his  residence,  not,  as 
before,  with  Thomas  Gay,  but  with  his  mother's 
brother,  the  Rev.  John  Hanmer,  the  Barnstaple 
Nonconformist  minister. 

That  Gay  should  have  found  the  littering  of 
polished  counters  with  taffeties  and  watered 
tabbies  an  uncongenial  occupation  is  not  sur- 
prising, especially  if  be  added  thereto  that  thank- 
less service  of  those  feminine  "silk-worms" 
who  (as  Swift  says  in  the  "City  Shower  ")  "  Pre- 
tend to  cheapen  Goods,  but  nothing  buy."  Yet 
it  is  to  be  feared  that  the  lack  of  energy  which 
was  his  leading  characteristic  would  have  equally 
disposed  him  against  any  continuous  or  laborious 
calling.  When  his  health  was  restored,  he  went 
back  to  town,  living  for  some  time  (according 
to  Mr.  Bailer1)  "  as  a  private  gentleman"  —  a 
statement  which  is  scarcely  reconcilable  with  the 
modest  opening  in  life  his  family  had  selected 
for  him.  Already  he  is  supposed  to  have  made 
some  definite  essays  in  literature,  and  the  swarm- 
ing taverns  and  coffee-houses  of  the  metropolis 
afforded  easy  opportunities  of  access  to  nota- 
bilities of  all  sorts.  He  had  besides  some  friends 
already  established  in  London.  Fortescue, 
Pope's  correspondent,  and  later  Master  of  the 
1  "  Gay's  Chair,"  1820,  p.  17. 


John  Gay.  245 

Rolls,  had  been  his  schoolmate  at  Luck's  ;  while 
another  of  Luck's  alumni  was  Aaron  Hill,  the 
playwright.  According  to  a  time-honoured  tra- 
dition, Gay  acted  for  some  time  as  Hill's  secre- 
tary. But  Hill  himself  was  only  embarking  in 
letters  when,  in  May,  1708,  Gay  published,  as 
an  eight-leaf  folio,  his  first  poem  of  "  Wine," 
the  purport  of  which  may  be  gathered  from  the 
Horatian  — 

"  Nulla  placere  diu,  nee  vivere  carmina  possunt, 
Quae  scribuntur  aquae  potoribus,"  — 

of  its  motto,  a  moot  theory  which  seems  to  have 
"  exercised"  the  author  throughout  his  life-time, 
since  he  is  still  discussing  it  in  his  last  letters. 
"  I  continue  to  drink  nothing  but  water,"  he 
tells  Swift  two  years  before  his  death,  "  so  that 
you  can't  require  any  poetry  from  me."  The 
publisher  of  "Wine"  was  William  Keble,  at 
the  Black-Spread-Eagle  in  Westminster  Hall, 
and  it  was  also  pirated  by  Henry  Hills  of  the 
"brown  sheets  and  scurvy  letter,"  referred  to 
in  Gay's  subsequent  "  Epistle  to  Bernard  Lin- 
tott."  "  Wine  "  professes  to  "draw  Miltonic 
air,"  but  the  atmosphere  inhaled  is  more  sugges- 
tive of  the  "  Splendid  Shilling  "  of  John  Philips. 
Gay  did  not  reprint  the  poem  in  his  subscription 
edition  of  1720,  perhaps  because  of  its  blank 


244  Miscellanies. 

verse  ;  but  the  concluding  lines,  which  describe 
the  breaking  up  of  a  li  midnight  Modern  Con- 
versation "  at  the  Devil  Tavern  by  Temple  Bar, 
already  disclose  the  minute  touch  of  "Trivia":  — 

"  now  all  abroad 

Is  hush'd  and  silent,  nor  the  rumbling  noise 
Of  coach  or  cart,  or  smoky  link-boys'  call 
Is  heard  —  but  universal  Silence  reigns : 
When  we  in  merry  plight,  airy  and  gay, 
Surpris'd  to  find  the  hours  so  swiftly  fly 
With  hasty  knock,  or  twang  of  pendent  cord, 
Alarm  the  drowsy  youth  from  slumb'ring  nod ; 
Startled  he  flies,  and  stumbles  o'er  the  stairs 
Erroneous,  and  with  busy  knuckles  plies 
His  yet  clung  eyelids,  and  with  stagg'ring  reel 
Enters  confused,  and  mutt'ring  asks  our  wills ; 
When  we  with  liberal  hand  the  score  discharge, 
And  homeward  each  his  course  with  steady  step 
Unerring  steers,  of  cares  and  coin  bereft." 

As  it  is  expressly  stated  that  the  Bordeaux  — 
the  particular  vintage  specified  —  was  paid  for, 
it  is  clear  that,  at  this  time,  Gay  must  have  suc- 
ceeded in  finding  either  a  purse  or  a  paymaster. 
It  is  equally  clear  from  his  next  ascertained  pro- 
duction that  he  had  acquired  more  than  a  slight 
familiarity  with  the  world  of  letters.  A  year 
after  the  publication  of  "  Wine  "  Steele  established 
the  Taller;  and  in  May,  1711,  when  the  Spec- 
tator was  two  months  old,  Gay  favoured  the 


John  Gay.  24 $ 

world  with  his  impressions  of  "  the  Histories 
and  Characters  of  all  our  Periodical  Papers, 
whether  Monthly,  Weekly  or  Diurnal,"  in  a 
threepenny  pamphlet,  entitled  "The  Present 
State  of  Wit,  in  a  Letter  to  a  Friend  in  the 
Country."  This,  which  Mr.  Arber  has  reprinted 
in  volume  vi.  of  his  "  English  Garner,"  is  of 
more  than  fugitive  interest.  It  disclaims  poli- 
tics upon  the  ground  that  it  does  not  care  "  one 
farthing  either  for  Whig  or  Tor/,"  but  it  refers 
to  the  Examiner  as  "a  Paper  which  all  Men, 
who  speak  without  Prejudice,  allow  to  be  well 
Writ."  At  this  time  Swift  evidently  knew 
nothing  of  his  critic,  for  he  tells  Stella  that 
"  the  author  seems  to  be  a  Whig  "...."  Above 
all  things,  he  praises  the  Tatlers  and  Spectators; 
and  I  believe  Steele  and  Addison  were  privv  to 
the  printing  of  it.  Thus  is  one  treated  by  these 
impudent  dogs  "  [with  whom  his  relations  were 
strained].  Apart  from  his  disclaimer  of  politics, 
nevertheless,  Gay,  if  he  was  anything,  was  a  Tory, 
and  Swift  was  wrong.  But  Gay  was  clearly  well 
informed  about  the  secret  history  of  Steele's  ven- 
tures, and  he  gives  an  excellent  account  of  the 
"  Esquire's  [i.  e.  Bickerstaffs]  Lucubrations." 
"  He  has  indeed  rescued  it  [Learning]  out  of 
the  hands  of  Pedants,  and  Fools,  and  discovered 
the  true  method  of  making  it  amiable  and  lovely 


246  Miscellanies. 

to  all  mankind.1  In  the  dress  he  gives  it,  'tis  a 
most  welcome  guest  at  Tea-tables  and  Assemblies, 
and  it  is  relish'd  and  caressed  by  the  Merchants  on 
the  Change  ;  accordingly,  there  is  not  a  Lady  at 
Court,  nor  a  Banker  in  Lumbard-Slreet,  who  is 
not  verily  perswaded,  that  Captain  Steele  is  the 
greatest  Scholar,  and  best  Casuist,  of  any  Man 
in  England."  From  other  passages  it  is  also 
plain  that  the  writer  (like  Swift)  knew  who  was 
Steele's  unnamed  colleague,  for  he  speaks  of 
Addison's  assistance  as  "no  longer  a  Secret," 
and  compares  the  conjunction  of  the  two 
friends  to  that  of  Somers  and  Halifax  "  in  a  late 
Reign."  It  may  consequently  be  concluded  that 
he  had  at  least  made  Steele's  acquaintance,  and 
that  the  set  of  the  Tatlers  in  four  volumes  on 
royal  paper,  which  Tonson  at  this  time  trans- 
mitted to  Gay  "by  Mr.  Steel's  Orders,"  is  at 
once  a  confirmation  of  the  fact  and  a  tacit  recog- 
nition of  the  welcome  compliments  contained 
in  "  J.  G.'s"  "  Present  State  of  Wit." 

But  "  Mr.  Isaac  Bickerstaff "  was  not  the 
only  notability  to  whom  Gay  had  become  known. 
In  July,  1711,  we  find  Pope  sending  Henry 
Cromwell  his  "  service  to  all  my  few  friends, 

1  These  words  seem  like  an  echo  of  the  passage  from 
Blackmore's  Preface  to  "  Prince  Arthur,"  which  Steele 
quotes  admiringly  in  Spectator  No.  6. 


John  Gay.  247 

and  to  Mr.  Gay  in  particular,"  and  in  the  same 
year  Gay  wrote  the  already  mentioned  "  Epis- 
tle to  Lintott,"  which  contained  among  other 
things,  reference  to  the  harmonious  "  Muse"  of 
the  young  author  of  the  "  Pastorals"  and  the 
recently-issued  "  Essay  on  Criticism." 

"  His  various  numbers  charm  our  ravish'd  ears, 
His  steady  judgment  far  out-shoots  his  years, 
And  early  in  the  youth  the  god  appears," 

sang  this  panegyrist  in  one  of  those  triplets  that 
Swift  abominated.  But  Pope,  who  saw  the  lines 
in  manuscript,  accepted  the  flattering  unction 
without  reserve,  and  the  epistle  accordingly,  in 
the  following  May  (1712),  made  its  appearance 
in  Lintott's  famous  "  Rape  of  the  Lock  "  Miscel- 
lany, to  which  Gay  also  contributed  the  Story  of 
Arachne  from  Ovid.  He  was  still,  it  seems,  un- 
known to  the  general  public,  for  the  contempo- 
rary announcement  of  the  book,  while  giving 
"bold  advertisement"  to  such  lesser  lights  as 
Fenton,  Broome,  and  Henry  Cromwell,  refrains 
from  including  his  name  among  the  eminent  hands 
who  contributed  to  the  collection.  Nor  is  it 
probable  that  his  reputation  had  been  greatly 
served  by  the  "  tragi-comical  farce"  he  had 
issued  a  week  or  two  before  under  the  title 
of  "The  Mohocks,"  —  i.  e.,  the  midnight  revel- 
lers whose  real  (or  imaginary)  misdeeds  were 


248  Miscellanies. 

at  that  time  engaging  public  attention.  It  was 
inscribed  to  Dennis  the  critic,  who  was  in- 
formed (in  his  own  vocabulary)  that  its  subject 
was  "Horrid  and  Tremendous,"  that  it  was 
conceived  "  according  to  the  exactest  Rules  of 
Dramatick  Poetry,"  and  that  it  was  based  upon 
his  own  "  Appius  and  Virginia."  Notwith- 
standing an  intentionally  ambiguous  title-page,1 
it  was  never  acted,  and  its  interest,  like  others 
of  Gay's  efforts,  is  purely  "temporary." 

Before  1712  had  ended,  Pope  was  able  to 
congratulate  his  new  ally  upon  what  promised 
to  be  a  material  stroke  of  good  fortune.  He 
was  appointed  "Secretary  or  Domestic  Stew- 
ard" to  the  Duchess  of  Monmouth,  —  that 
"  virtuous  and  excellent  lady,"  as  Evelyn  calls 
her,  whose  husband  had  been  beheaded  in  the 
year  of  Gay's  birth.  The  exact  amount  of  de- 
pendence implied  by  this  office  is  obscure,  and 
it  is  differently  estimated  by  different  narrators. 
It  is  more  material  to  note  that  Gay  must 
already  have  been  engaged  upon  his  next  poeti- 

1  The  following  is  the  advertisement  in  the  Spectator 
for  loth  April,  1712:  — 

"This  Day  is  Published,  The  Mohocks.  A  Tragi- 
Comical  Farce.  As  it  was  Acted  near  the  Watch-house  in 
Covent-Garden.  By  her  Majesty 's  Servants.  Printed  for 
Bernard  Lintott;  at  the  Cross-Keys  between  the  two 
Temple-Gates  in  Fleet-Street." 


John  Gay.  249 

cal  effort,  perhaps  his  first  serious  one,  the 
Georgic  called  "  Rural  Sports,"  which  he  in- 
scribed to  Pope.  It  was  published  by  Tonson 
on  the  i  ^th  January,  1713.  To  the  reader  of 
the  post-Wordsworthian  age,  its  merit  is  not  re- 
markable, and  Johnson  anticipated  the  toujours 
bien,  jamais  mieux  of  Madame  Guizot,  when  he 
described  it  as  "never  contemptible,  nor  ever 
excellent."  Mr.  Underhill,  indeed,  goes  so  far 
as  to  deny  to  it  any  experimental  knowledge  of 
country  life  ;  and,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  Gay  him- 
self admits  that  he  had  long  been  a  town-dweller. 
Still  his  childhood  must  have  been  passed  among 
rural  scenes,  and  it  is  by  no  means  certain  that 
if  he  had  written  his  verses  at  Barnstaple  he 
would  —  writing  as  he  did  under  Anna  Augusta 
—  have  written  them  in  a  different  way.  We 
suspect  that  the  germ  of  the  objection,  as  often, 
is  to  be  traced,  not  so  much  to  the  poem  itself, 
as  to  certain  preconceived  shortcomings  in  its 
author.  Johnson's  disbelief  in  Goldsmith's  abil- 
ity to  distinguish  between  a  cow  and  a  horse  no 
doubt  coloured  his  appreciation  of  the  "  Ani- 
mated Nature;"  and  Swift  (whom  Mr.  Under- 
hill quotes)  doubted  if  Gay  could  tell  an  oak 
from  a  crab  tree.  "  You  are  sensible,"  Swift 
went  on,  "that  I  know  the  full  extent  of  your 
country  skill  is  in  fishing  for  roaches,  or  gud- 


250  Miscellanies. 

geons  at  the  highest."  With  such  a  testimony 
before  us,  criticism  of  "Rural  Sports"  easily 
becomes  a  foregone  conclusion.  Nevertheless, 
it  deserves  more  consideration  than  it  has 
received. 

Apart  from  the  production  at  Drury  Lane,  in 
May,  1713,  of  a  deplorable  play,  "The  Wife  of 
Bath,"  and  the  contribution  to  Steele's  Guar- 
dian of  two  brightly  written  papers  on  "  Flat- 
tery "  and  "  Dress"  (Nos.  11  and  149),  Gay's 
next  ascertained  work  was  "The  Fan."  It  is 
one  of  the  contradictions  of  criticism  that  this 
poor  and  ineffectual  poem  should  have  been  re- 
ceived with  greater  favour  than  the  (relatively) 
far  superior  "  Rural  Sports."  Gay's  mythology 
is  never  very  happy  (Mr.  Elwin  roundly  styles 
it  "  stupid  "),  and  he  always  writes  best  with  his 
eye  on  the  object.  Pope,  however,  interested 
himself  in  "The  Fan,"  and  even  touched  on 
that  "little  modish  machine"  in  parts,  —  cir- 
cumstances which  give  it  a  slender  interest.  A 
week  or  two  later  appeared  Steele's  "  Poetical 
Miscellany,"  in  which  Gay  is  represented  by 
"A  Contemplation  upon  Death,"  and  by  a  pair 
of  elegies  ("  Panthea  "  and  "  Araminta  ").  But 
his  first  individual  performance,  "The  Shep- 
herd's Week,"  belongs  to  the  early  part  of  1714. 
This  again  is  closely  connected  with  his  friend- 


John  Gay.  251 

ship  with  Pope.  Pope,  smarting  under  the 
praise  which  Tickell  had  given  in  the  Guardian 
to  the  Pastorals  of  Ambrose  Philips,  and  not 
content  with  perfidiously  reviewing  Philips  him- 
self in  the  same  periodical,  now  contrived  to 
induce  the  author  of  "  Rural  Sports"  to  aid  the 
cause  by  burlesquing  his  rival  in  a  sequence  of 
sham  eclogues,  in  which  he  was  to  exhibit  the 
Golden  Age  with  the  gilt  off,  "after  the  true 
ancient  guise  of  Theocritus."  "Thou  wilt  not 
find  my  Shepherdesses "  —  says  the  Author's 
"Proeme"  —  "  idly  piping  on  oaten  Reeds,  but 
milking  the  Kine,  tying  up  the  Sheaves,  or  if 
the  Hogs  are  astray  driving  them  to  their  Styes. 
My  Shepherd  gathereth  none  other  Nosegays 
but  what  are  the  growth  of  our  own  Fields  ;  he 
sleepeth  not  under  Myrtle  shades,  but  under  a 
Hedge,  nor  doth  he  vigilantly  defend  his  Flocks 
from  Wolves  "  [this  was  a  palpable  hit  at  Philips !] 
"  because  there  are  none."  Like  Fielding's 
"Joseph  Andrews,"  the  execution  of  "The 
Shepherd's  Week  "  was  far  superior  to  its  avowed 
object  of  mere  ridicule.  In  spite  of  their  bar- 
barous "  Bumkinets"  and  "  Grubbinols,"  Gay's 
little  idylls  abound  with  interesting  folk-lore  and 
(wherever  acquired)  with  closely  studied  rural 
pictures.  We  see  the  country  girl  burning  hazel 
nuts  to  find  her  sweetheart,  or  presenting  the 


2  $  2  Miscellanies. 

faithless  Colin  with  a  knife  with  a  "posy"  on 
it.  or  playing  at  "  Hot  Cockles,"  or  listening  to 
"Gillian  of  Croydon,"  and  "Patient  Grissel." 
Nor  are  there  wanting  sly  strokes  of  kindly  satire, 
as  when  the  shepherds  are  represented  fencing 
the  grave  of  Blouzelinda  against  the  prospective 
inroads  of  the  parson's  horse  and  cow,  which 
have  the  right  of  grazing  in  the  churchyard  ;  or 
when  that  dignitary,  in  consideration  of  the 
liberal  sermon-fee,  "Spoke  the  Hour-glass  in 
her  praise  —  quite  out." 

From  a  biographical  point  of  view,  however, 
the  most  interesting  part  of  "The  Shepherd's 
Week "  is  its  dedicatory  prologue  to  Boling- 
broke,  a  circumstance  which,  according  to 
Swift,  constituted  that  "  original  sin  "  against  the 
Court  which  afterwards  interfered  so  much  with 
Gay's  prospects  of  preferment.  But  its  allusions 
also  show  that  the  former  mercer's  apprentice 
had  already  made  the  acquaintance  of  Arbuthnot, 
and  probably  of  some  gentler  critics,  whose 
favour  was  of  greater  importance.  "  No  more," 
says  the  poet, 

"  No  more  I  '11  sing  Buxoma  brown, 
Like  Goldfinch  in  her  Sunday  Gown ; 
Nor  Clumsilis,  nor  Marian  bright, 
Nor  Damsel  that  Hobnelia  hight. 
But  Lansdown  fresh  as  Flow'r  of  May, 


John  Gay.  255 

And  Berkly  Lady  blithe  and  gay, 
And  Anglesey  whose  Speech  exceeds 
The  voice  of  Pipe,  or  oaten  Reeds  ; 
And  blooming  Hide,  with  Eyes  so  rare, 
And  Montague  beyond  compare." 

"  Blooming  Hide,  with  eyes  so  rare,"  was 
Lady  Jane  Hyde,  daughter  of  the  Earl  of  Clar- 
endon, and  elder  sister  of  the  Catherine  who  was 
subsequently  to  be  Gay's  firmest  friend. 

The  Scriblerus  Club,  to  which  his  friend 
Pope  had  introduced  him,  and  for  which  he  is 
said  to  have  acted  as  Secretary,  had  also  done 
him  the  greater  service  of  securing  him  an  even 
firmer  ally  in  Swift,  and  it  was  doubtless  to  his 
connection  with  this  famous  association,  of  which 
Lord  Oxford  was  an  occasional  member,  that 
he  was  indebted  for  his  next  stroke  of  good  for- 
tune. By  June.  1714,  he  had  resigned,  or  been 
dismissed  from,  his  position  in  the  household  of 
the  Duchess  of  Monmouth.  But  in  that  month, 
with  the  aid  of  his  new  friends,  he  was  appointed 
Secretary  to  Lord  Clarendon,  then  Envoy  Ex- 
traordinary to  the  Court  of  Hanover,  and  there 
exists  a  brief  rhymed  appeal  or  "  Epigrammati- 
cal  Petition  "  from  the  impecunious  poet  to  Lord 
Oxford  (in  his  capacity  as  Lord  Treasurer) 
for  funds  to  enable  him  to  enter  upon  his 
duties. 


2  $4  Miscellanies. 

I  'm  no  more  to  converse  with  the  swains, 

But  go  where  fine  people  resort ; 
One  can  live  without  money  on  plains, 

But  never  without  it  at  court. 

If,  when  with  the  swains  I  did  gambol, 

I  array'd  me  in  silver  and  blue  ; 
When  abroad,  and  in  courts,  I  shall  ramble, 
Pray,  my  lord,  how  much  money  will  do  ? 1 

He  got,  not  without  difficulty,  and  probably 
through  the  instrumentality  of  Arbuthnot  (who 
handed  in  his  memorial)  a  grant  of  ^100  for  his 
outfit ;  and  he  also  got,  from  Swift  in  Ireland,  a 
letter  of  fatherly  advice  exhorting  him  to  learn  to 
be  a  manager,  to  mind  his  Latin,  to  look  up 
Aristotle  upon  Politics,  and  Grotius  "  De  Jure 
Belli  et  Pacis."  For  a  brief  space  we  must  im- 
agine him  strutting  in  his  new  clothes  through 
the  clipped  avenues  of  Herrenhausen,  yawning 
over  the  routine  life  of  the  petty  German  Court, 
and  perfecting  himself  in  the  diplomatic  arts  of 
"  bowing  profoundly,  speaking  deliberately,  and 
wearing  both  sides  of  his  long  periwig  before." 
Then  the  death  of  Queen  Anne  put  an  end  to 
all  these  halcyon  days.  What  was  worse,  the 
"  Shepherd's  Week,"  as  already  stated,  had  been 
dedicated  to  Bolingbroke,  and  Bolingbroke  — 
ill-luck  would  have  it  —  was  not  in  favour  with 
1  Letter  from  Gay  to  Swift,  June  8,  1714. 


John  Gay.  255 

Her  Most  Gracious  Majesty's  successor.  In 
this  juncture,  as  a  course  which  "  could  do  no 
harm,  "  Pope,  who  seems  always  to  have  treated 
Gay  with  unfailing  affection,  counselled  his  de- 
jected friend  "to  write  something  on  the  King, 
or  Prince,  or  Princess,"  and  Arbuthnot  said  ditto 
to  Pope.  Gay,  cheering  up,  accordingly,  set 
about  an  "  Epistle  to  a  Lady  [probably  Mrs. 
Howard,  afterwards  Lady  Suffolk] :  Occasioned 
by  the  arrival  of  Her  Royal  Highness  [i.  e.  the 
Princess  of  Wales,  whom  he  had  seen  at  Han- 
over]." In  this  he  takes  opportunity  to  touch 
plaintively  upon  the  forlorn  hopes  of  needy 
suitors :  — 

"  Pensive  each  night,  from  room  to  room  I  walk'd, 
To  one  I  bow'd,  and  with  another  talk'd  ; 
Enquir'd  what  news,  or  such  a  Lady's  name, 
And  did  the  next  day,  and  the  next,  the  same. 
Places,  I  found,  were  daily  giv'n  away 
And  yet  no  friendly  Gazette  mentioned  Gay" 

The  only  appreciable  result  of  this  ingenuous 
appeal  was  that  Their  Royal  Highnesses  came  to 
Drury  Lane  in  February,  1717,  to  witness  Gay's 
next  dramatic  effort,  the  tragic-comi-pastoral  farce 
of  the  "What  d'ye  Call  it,"  a  piece  after  the  fash- 
ion of  Buckingham's  "Rehearsal,"  inasmuch  as 
it  parodies  the  popular  tragedies  of  the  day,  and 
even  roused  the  ire  of  Steele  by  taking  liberties 


256  Miscellanies. 

with  Addisorfs  "Cato."  Without  the  "  Key" 
which  was  speedily  prepared  by  Theobald  and 
Griffin  the  actor,  its  allusions  must  at  first  have 
fallen  rather  flat  upon  an  uninstructed  audience, 
especially  as  its  action  was  grave  and  its  images 
comic.  Gay's  matter-of-fact  friend,  Cromwell, 
who  saw  the  gestures  but,  being  deaf,  could  not 
hear  the  words,  consequently  found  it  hopelessly 
unintelligible.  But  it  brought  its  author  a  hun- 
dred pounds,  and  it  contains  one  of  his  most 
musical  songs  " 'T  was  when  the  seas  were 
roaring."  A  few  months  after  its  publication  in 
book  form,  Lord  Burlington  sent  the  poet  into 
Devonshire,  an  expedition  which  he  commem- 
orated in  a  pleasant  tributary  epistle  published 
in  1715  with  the  title  of  "  A  Journey  to  Exeter." 
He  had  two  travelling  companions,  no  needless 
precaution  when  Bagshot  Heath  swarmed  with 
"  broken  gamesters"  who  had  taken  to  the  road, 
and  he  describes  delightfully  his  impressions  de 
voyage,  —  the  fat  and  garrulous  landlord  at 
Hartley-Row,  the  red  trout  and  "rich  metheg- 
lin "  at  Steele's  borough  of  Stockbridge,  the 
"  cloak'd  shepherd"  on  Salisbury  Plain,  the 
lobsters  and  "  unadulterate  wine"  at  More- 
combe-lake,1  and  last  of  all,  the  female  barber  at 
Axminster :  — 

1  A  writer  in  the  Atheruzum  for  Dec.  i,  1894,  points 
out    that  this  is  a  mistake.      Gay  must   have   stripped 


John  Gay.  257 

The  weighty  golden  chain  adorns  her  neck, 
And  three  gold  rings  her  skilful  hand  bedeck : 
Smooth  o'er  our  chin  her  easy  fingers  move, 
Soft  as  when  Venus  stroak'd  the  beard  oljove." 

Incidentally,  we  learn  that  Gay  could  draw,  for 
he  sketches  the  "eyeless"  faces  of  his  fellow 
travellers  asleep  in  two  chairs  at  Dorchester. 
Also  that,  at  thirty,  he  was  already  stout :  — 

You  knew/atf  Bards  might  tire, 
And,  mounted,  sent  me  forth  your  trusty  Squire. 

It  must  have  been  about  this  time  that  Gay 
composed  another  poem,  somewhat  akin  to  the 
Exeter  epistle,  inasmuch  as  both  were  probably 
influenced  by  the  verses  on  "  Morning  "  and  "  A 
City  Shower,"  which  Swift  had  contributed  to 
Steele's  Taller.  Indeed,  in  the  Preface  to 
"Trivia;  or,  the  Art  of  Walking  the  Streets 
of  London,"  which  appeared  at  the  end  of  Jan- 
uary, 1716,  Gay  specially  refers  to  hints  given 
to  him  by  Dr.  Swift.  The  theme  is  an  unex- 
pected one  for  an  author  whose  tastes  were 
certainly  not  pedestrian  ("  any  lady  with  a  coach 
and  six  horses  would  carry  him  to  Japan,"  said 
the  Dean  later)  ;  but  it  has  still  its  attraction  to 

"  the   lobster  of  his   scarlet  mail "  a   little  farther   on, 
at  Charmouth.     But  these  references  to  food  at  least 
confirm  Congreve's  dictum  of  Gay,  —  "Edit,  ergo  est" 
17 


2  $8  Miscellanies. 

the  antiquary  and  the  student  of  the  early  eigh- 
teenth century.  Every  one  who  desires  to  real- 
ise the  London  of  the  first  George,  with  its 
signs  and  its  street  cries  (that  ramage  de  la  ville, 
which  Will.  Honeycomb  preferred  to  larks  and 
nightingales),  its  link  boys  and  its  chairmen,  its 
sweeps,  small-coal  men,  milk-maids,  Mohocks, 
and  the  rest,  must  give  his  days  and  nights  to 
the  study  of  "  Trivia."  He  will  obtain  valuable 
expert  advice  as  to  the  ceremony  of  taking  or 
giving  the  wall ;  learn  to  distinguish  and  divide 
between  a  Witney  Roquelaure  and  a  Kersey 
Wrap-Rascal ;  and,  it  may  be,  discover  to  his 
surprise  that  there  were  umbrellas  before  Jonas 
Hanway :  — 

Good  housewives  all  the  winter's  rage  despise, 
Defended  by  the  riding-hood's  disguise : 
Or  underneath  th'  umbrella's  oily  shed, 
Safe  thro'  the  wet  on  clinking  pattens  tread. 

It  is  consoling  to  think  that  Gay  made  some 
^"40  by  this  eighteen-penny  poem,  and  ^100 
more  by  the  subscriptions  which  Pope  and  oth- 
ers, always  jealously  watching  over  his  interests, 
obtained  to  a  large  paper  edition.  But  it  is 
impossible  to  commend  his  next  production,  of 
which,  indeed,  it  is  suspected  that  he  did  no 
more  than  bear  the  blame.  Although  he  signed 


John  Gay.  259 

the  advertisement  of  the  comedy  entitled  "Three 
Hours  before  Marriage,"  it  is  pretty  sure  that 
he  had  Pope  and  Arbuthnot  for  active  coadju- 
tors. But  whether  Pope  libelled  Dennis  as 
"Sir  Tremendous,"  or  Arbuthnot  Woodward, 
or  Gay  himself  the  Duchess  of  Monmouth  as 
the  very  incidental  "Countess  of  Hippoke- 
koana"  (Ipecacuanha?) — are  questions  scarcely 
worthy  of  discussion  now.  It  is  sufficient 
that  the  piece  was  both  gross  and  silly.  It 
failed  ignominiously  on  the  boards  in  January, 
1717,  and  is  not  likely  to  be  consulted  in  type 
except  by  fanatics  of  the  fugitive  like  George 
Steevens,  who  reprinted  it  in  the  "Additions 
to  Pope"  of  1776. 

During  all  this  period  Gay  seems  to  have  been 
vaguely  expecting  Court  favour,  and  to  have 
suffered  most  of  the  discouragements  of  hope 
deferred.  Yet,  if  the  Court  neglected  his  pre- 
tensions—  and  it  nowhere  appears  that  they 
were  very  well  grounded  —  he  always  found 
friends  whose  kindness  took  a  practical  form. 
Lord  Burlington  had  sent  him  to  Exeter;  in 
1717  Pulteney  carried  him  to  Aix  as  his  Secre- 
tary, a  trip  which  furnished  the  occasion  of  a 
second  Epistle.  Then,  in  1718,  he  went  with 
Lord  Harcourt  to  Oxfordshire,  where  befell  that 
pretty  tragedy  of  the  two  haymakers  struck 


260  Miscellanies. 

dead  by  lightning,  which  sentimental  Mr.  Pope 
made  the  subject  of  a  fine  and  famous  letter  to 
Lady  Mary  Wortley  Montagu,  who,  unluckily 
for  sentiment,  received  it  in  anything  but  a  sen- 
timental spirit.  Both  the  journeys  to  Aix  and 
Exeter  were  reprinted  in  the  grand  quarto  edi- 
tion of  Gay's  poems  which  Tonson  and  Lintott 
published  in  1720,  with  a  frontispiece  by  the 
eminent  William  Kent,  and  with  a  list  of  sub- 
scribers rivalling  in  number  and  exceeding  in 
interest  that  prefixed  to  the  Prior  of  1718. 
Those  munificent  patrons  of  literature,  the  Earl 
of  Burlington  and  the  Duke  of  Chandos,  took 
fifty  copies  eachl  In  the  second  volume  were 
included  a  number  of  epistles  and  miscellaneous 
pieces,  many  of  which  were  published  for  the 
first  time,  as  well  as  a  new  pastoral  tragedy 
called  "  Dione."  One  of  the  ballads,  "Sweet 
William's  Farewell  to  Black  Ey'd  Susan,"  was 
long  popular,  and  is  still  justly  ranked  among 
the  best  efforts  of  the  writer's  muse.  Of  the 
thousand  pounds  which  Gay  cleared  over  this 
venture  his  friends  hoped  he  would  make  provi- 
dent use,  suggesting  purchase  of  an  annuity, 
investment  in  the  funds,  and  so  forth.  But 
Craggs  had  given  him  some  South  Sea  Stock, 
and  to  this  he  added  his  new  windfall,  becom- 
ing in  short  space  master  of  ^20,000.  Again 


John  Gay.  261 

his  well-wishers  clustered  about  him  with  pru- 
dent counsels.  At  least,  said  Fenton,  secure 
as  much  as  will  make  you  certain  "  of  a  clean 
shirt,  and  a  shoulder  of  mutton  every  day." 
But  the  "  most  refractory,  honest,  good-natur'd 
man,"  as  Swift  calls  him,  was  not  to  be  so 
advised.  He  was  seized  with  the  South  Sea  mad- 
ness, and  promptly  lost  both  principal  and  profits. 
Among  the  other  names  on  the  subscription 
list  of  the  volumes  of  1720  are  two  which  have 
a  special  attraction  in  Gay's  life,  for  they  are 
those  of  his  kindest  friends,  the  Duke  and 
Duchess  of  Queensberry.  The  lady  was  the 
charming  and  wayward  Catharine  Hyde, — the 
"  Kitty  "  whose  first  appearance  at  Drury  Lane 
playhouse  as  a  triumphant  beauty  of  eighteen 
Prior  had  celebrated  in  some  of  his  brightest 
and  airiest  verses,  and  whose  picture,  as  a 
milkmaid  of  quality,  painted  by  Charles  Jervas 
at  a  later  date,  is  to  be  seen  at  the  National 
Portrait  Gallery.  As  already  stated,  Gay  had 
written  of  her  sister  Jane  (by  this  time  Countess 
of  Essex)  as  far  back  as  1/14;  and  it  maybe 
that  her  own  acquaintance  with  him  dated  from 
the  same  period.  In  any  case,  after  her  mar- 
riage to  the  Duke  of  Queensberry  in  1720,  she 
appears  to  have  taken  Gay  under  her  protection. 
"He  [Gay]  is  always  with  the  Duchess  of 


262  Miscellanies. 

Queensberry  " —  writes  Mrs.  Bradshaw  to  Mrs. 
Howard  in  1721  ;  and  five  years  afterwards  the 
poet  himself  tells  Swift  that  he  has  been  with 
his  patrons  in  Oxfordshire  and  at  Petersham 
and  "  wheresoever  they  would  carry  me."  In 
the  interval  he  is  helping  Congreve  to  nurse  his 
gout  "  at  the  Bath,"  or  living  almost  altogether 
with  Lord  Burlington  at  Chiswick  or  Piccadilly 
or  Tunbridge  Wells,  or  acting  as  secretary  to 
Pope  at  Twickenham  ("which  you  know  is  no 
idle  charge"),  or  borrowing  sheets  from  Jervas 
to  entertain  Swift  in  those  lodgings  which  had 
been  granted  to  him  by  the  Earl  of  Lincoln, 
and  were  taken  from  him  by  Sir  Robert  Wai- 
pole.  It  says  much  for  the  charm  of  his  char- 
acter that  he  knew  how  to  acquire  and  how  to 
retain  friends  so  constant  and  so  diverse.  But 
though  his  life  sounds  pleasant  in  the  summary, 
it  must  have  involved  humiliations  which  would 
have  been  intolerable  to  a  more  independent 
man.  According  to  Arbuthnot,  the  Burling- 
tons  sometimes  left  their  protege"  in  want  of  the 
necessaries  of  life,  and  neither  they  nor  his 
other  great  friends  were  very  active  to  procure 
him  preferment.  "They  wonder,"  says  Gay 
piteously  to  Swift  in  1722,  "  at  each  other  for 
not  providing  for  me  ;  and  I  wonder  at  them 
all."  From  a  letter  which  he  wrote  to  Pope 


John  Gay.  263 

two  years  later,  it  is  nevertheless  plain  that 
somebody  had  given  him  a  lottery  commissioner- 
ship  worth  ;£i  50  per  annum,  so  that,  for  a  man 
whose  claims  were  not  urgent,  he  can  hardly 
be  said  to  have  been  culpably  neglected. 

Previously  to  his  appointment  as  a  lottery 
commissioner  he  had  been  seriously  ill.  The 
loss  of  his  South  Sea  Stock  preyed  upon  his 
spirits;  and  his  despondency  "being  attended 
with  the  cholic  " —  in  the  unvarnished  language 
of  the  "  Biographia  Britannica  "  —  "brought 
his  life  in  danger."  Upon  his  recovery,  and 
pending  the  postponed  advancement  he  was 
always  "lacking"  ("the  Court  keeps  him  at 
hard  meat,"  wrote  Swift  in  172^),  he  produced 
another  play,  "The  Captives,"  which  ran  for 
a  week  in  January,  1724,  the  third  or  author's 
night  being  expressly  commanded  by  his  old 
patrons,  the  Prince  and  Princess  of  Wales. 
Then  at  the  request  of  the  Princess,  he  set  to 
work  upon  the  "  Fables"  by  which  his  reputa- 
tion as  a  writer  mainly  survives.  "Gay  is 
writing  Tales  for  Prince  William,"  Pope  tells 
Swift.  After  many  delays,  partly  in  production 
by  the  press,  partly  owing  to  Gay's  own  dilatory 
habits,  the  first  series  appeared  in  1727,*  and 

1  A  second  series  of  sixteen  fables  was  published  in 
1738,  after  his  death,  from  the  manuscripts  in  the  hands  of 
the  Duke  of  Queensberry. 


264  Miscellanies. 

was  well  received,  although,  if  Swift  is  to  be 
believed,  their  "  nipping  turns  "  upon  courtiers 
were  not  best  welcomed  where  the  poet  most 
needed  encouragement.  To  this  it  is  perhaps 
to  be  attributed  that  when  George  II.  came  at 
last  to  the  throne  nothing  better  was  found  for 
Gay  than  the  post  of  gentleman-usher  to  the 
little  Princess  Louisa  —  a  child  under  three. 
By  this  time  he  was  more  than  forty,  and  he 
had  self-respect  enough  to  think  himself  too 
old.  He  therefore  politely  declined  the  nomina- 
tion. With  this,  however,  his  long  deferred 
expectations  finally  vanished.  <(  I  have  no 
prospect,"  he  wrote  with  tardy  sagacity  to 
Swift,  "  but  in  depending  wholly  upon  myself, 
and  my  own  conduct.  As  I  am  used  to  dis- 
appointments, I  can  bear  them  ;  but  as  I  can 
have  no  more  hopes,  I  can  no  more  be  disap- 
pointed, so  that  I  am  in  a  blessed  con- 
dition." 

Strangely  enough,  when  he  penned  this 'in 
October,  1727,  he  had  already  completed  what 
was  to  be  his  greatest  dramatic  success,  the 
famous  "  Beggar's  Opera,"  which,  produced  at 
Lincoln's  Inn  Fields  on  the  29th  of  January, 
1728,  for  a  season  overthrew  Italian  song, — 
"  that  Dagon  of  the  Nobility  and  Gentry,  who 
had  so  long  seduced  them  to  idolatry,"  as  the 


John  Gay.  265 

"  Companion  to  the  Playhouse  "  puts  it,  —  and 
made  its  Author's  name  a  household  word. 
How  it  first  occurred  to  Swift  what  "an 
odd  pretty  sort  of  thing  a  Newgate  Pastoral 
might  make ;  "  how  friends  hesitated,  and  Gibber 
rejected,  and  the  public  rapturously  applauded  ; 
how  it  was  sung  at  street  corners,  and  painted 
on  screens ;  how  it  procured  its  "  Polly " 
(Lavinia  Fenton)  a  coronet,  and  made  Rich 
(the  manager)  gay,  and  Gay  (the  author)  rich  — 
all  these  things  are  the  commonplaces  of  litera- 
ture. At  Mr.  John  Murray's  in  Albemarle 
Street  may  still  be  seen  one  of  the  three  pic- 
tures which  William  Hogarth  painted  of  that  all 
conquering  company,  and  which,  years  after- 
wards, was  engraved  by  another  William  — 
William  Blake.  The  Coryphaeus  of  the  high- 
way (Walker)  appears  in  the  centre,  while 
"  Lucy"  (Mrs.  Egleton)  pleads  for  him  to  the 
left,  and  "  Polly"  (Miss  Fenton)  to  the  right. 
Scandal,  in  the  person  of  John,  Lord  Hervey, 
adds  that  the  opera  owed  a  part  of  its  popularity 
to  something  in  the  dilemma  of  Macheath  "  be- 
tween his  twa  Deborahs "  which  irresistibly 
suggested  the  equally  equivocal  position  of 
Walpole  between  his  wife  and  his  mistress. 
This  is  probably  exaggerated,  as  is  also  the  aid 
which  Gay  is  reported  to  have  received  from 


266  Miscellanies. 

Pope  and  others,1  but  it  accounts  in  a  measure 
for  the  fate  which  befell  Gay's  next  enterprise. 

That  some  attempt  to  perpetuate  so  signal 
a  success  as  the  "  Beggar's  Opera  "  should  not 
be  made  was  scarcely  in  the  nature  of  things; 
and  Gay  set  speedily  about  the  preparation  of 
a  sequel,  to  which  he  gave  the  name  of  the 
popular  heroine  of  the  earlier  piece.  But 
"  Polly"  was  saved  from  the  common  fate  of 
continuations  by  the  drastic  action  of  the  Lord 
Chamberlain,  taken,  it  is  surmised,  upon  the 
instruction  of  Walpole.  When  it  was  almost 
ready  for  rehearsal,  the  representation  was  pro- 
hibited. The  result  of  this  not  very  far-sighted 
step  on  the  part  of  the  authorities  was  of  course 
to  invest  its  publication  as  a  book  with  an  un- 
precedented and  wholly  fictitious  interest. 
Friends  on  all  sides,  and  especially  those  op- 
posed to  the  Court,  strained  every  nerve  to 
promote  the  sale.  The  Duchess  of  Marlborough 
(Congreve's  Henrietta)  gave  £100  for  a  copy  ; 
and  the  Duchess  of  Queensberry,  who  had  the 
temerity  to  solicit  subscriptions  within  the  very 
precincts  of  St.  James's,  was  forbidden  to  return 

1  Pope  —  "  semper  ardentes  acuens  sagittas  "  —  was  sup- 
posed to  have  pointed  some  of  the  songs.  But  he  told 
Spence  that  neither  he  nor  Swift  gave  any  material  aid  in 
the  work  ("Anecdotes,"  1858,  pp.  no,  120). 


John  Gaj.  267 

to  them.  Thereupon  the  Duke,  nothing  loth, 
threw  up  his  appointments,  as  Vice  Admiral  of 
Scotland  and  Lord  of  the  Bedchamber,  and 
followed  his  lady,  who  delivered  a  Parthian 
shaft  in  the  shape  of  a  very  indiscreet  and 
saucy  letter  to  His  Majesty  King  George.  In 
all  this,  it  is  plain  that  Gay's  misfortune  was 
simply  made  the  instrument  of  political  antag- 
onisms :  but,  for  the  moment,  his  name  was 
on'  every  lip.  <  "  The  inoffensive  John  Gay  "  — 
writes  Arbuthnot  to  Swift  under  date  of  March 
19,  1729  —  "  is  now  become  one  of  the  obstruc- 
tions to  the  peace  of  Europe,  the  terror  of  the 
ministers,  the  chief  author  of  the  Craftsman, 
and  all  the  seditious  pamphlets,  which  have 
been  published  against  the  Government.  He 
has  got  several  turned  out  of  their  places  ;  the 
greatest  ornament  of  the  court  banished  from 
it  for  his  sake ; 1  another  great  lady  [Mrs. 
Howard]  in  danger  of  being  Chassd  [sic]  like- 
wise ;  about  seven  or  eight  duchesses  pressing 
forward,  like  the  antient  circumcelliones  in  the 
church,  who  shall  suffer  martyrdom  on  his  ac- 
count first.  He  is  the  darling  of  the  city  .  .  . 
I  can  assure  you,  this  is  the  very  identical 

1 "  The  gay  Amanda  let  us  now  behold, 
In  thy  Defence,  a  lovely  banished  Scold." 

"The  Female  Faction,"  1729. 


268  Miscellanies. 

John  Gay,  whom  you  formerly  knew,  and 
lodged  with  in  Whitehall  two  years  ago."  The 
gross  result  was  that  Gay  gained  about  ^1200 
by  the  publication  of  "  Polly  "  as  a  six  shilling 
quarto,  of  which  Bowyer,  the  printer,  in  one 
year  struck  off  10,500  copies;  by  the  repre- 
sentation of  the  "Beggar's  Opera"  he  had 
made,  according  to  his  own  account,  "  between 
^"700  and  ;£8oo  "  to  Rich's  ^4000. 

During  a  great  part  of  1728  Gay  resided  at 
Bath  with  the  Duchess  of  Marlborough.  After 
the  prohibition  of  "  Polly,"  he  appears,  as 
usual,  to  have  fallen  ill,  and  to  have  been  tenderly 
nursed  by  Arbuthnot.  "  I  may  say,  without 
vanity,  his  life,  under  God,  is  due  to  the 
unwearied  endeavors  and  care  of  your  humble 
servant,"  writes  this  devoted  friend  to  Swift. 
Then  the  Queensberrys  took  formal  charge 
of  John  Gay  and  henceforth  he  lived  either  at 
their  town  house  in  Burlington  Gardens  (where 
now  stands  the  Western  Branch  of  the  Bank 
of  England),  or  at  their  pleasant  country  seat  of 
Amesbury  in  Wiltshire.  The  Duke  kept  the 
poet's  money ;  the  Duchess  watched  over  the 
poet  and  his  wardrobe.1  "  I  was  a  long  time," 

1  In  these  characteristics  Gay  seems  to  have  imitated 
La  Fontaine,  who,  after  living  twenty  years  with  Mme. 
de  la  Sabliere,  passed  at  her  death  to  the  care  of  M. 


John  Gay.  269 

he  says  in  1730,  "  before  I  could  prevail  with  her 
to  let  me  allow  myself  a  pair  of  shoes  with  two 
heels ;  for  I  had  lost  one,  and  the  shoes  were 
so  decayed,  that  they  were  not  worth  mending." 
Elsewhere  it  is —  "  I  am  ordered  by  the  duchess 
to  grow  rich  in  the  manner  of  Sir  John  Cutler.1 
I  have  nothing,  at  this  present  writing,  but  my 
frock  that  was  made  at  Salisbury,  and  a  bob- 
perriwig."  In  an  earlier  paper  in  these  volumes 2 
we  have  given  some  account  of  the  joint  letters 
which  at  this  period  Gay  and  his  kind  protect- 
ress wrote  to  Swift  m  Ireland,  and  they  present 
a  most  engaging  picture  of  the  alliance  between 
the  author  of  "The  Hare  and  Many  Friends" 
and  the  grande  dame  de  par  le  monde  of  the 
last  century.  Most  of  them  were  written  from 
Amesbury  (where  nothing  but  a  summer  house 
now  remains  of  the  buildings  as  they  were  in 
Gay's  time),  and  their  main  theme  is  the  invita- 

and  Mme.  de  Hervart.  "  D'autres  prenaient  soin  de  lui " 
- —  says  M.  Taine.  "  II  se  donnait  a  ses  amis,  sentant 
bien  qu'il  ne  pouvait  pourvoir  a  lui-meme.  Mme. 
d'Hervart,  jeune  et  charmante,  veilla  a  tout,  jusqu'a  ses 
vetements,"  etc.  ..."  Ses  autres  amis  faisaient  de 
meme."  Are  all  fabulists  congenitally  feckless  ? 

1  Cf.     Pope's  Epistle   "Of  the   Use   of  Riches,"  11. 

3I5-34- 

2  See  "Prior's  Kitty,"  in  "Eighteenth  Century  Vig- 
nettes," First  Series. 


270  Miscellanies. 

tion  of  Swift  to  England.  The  final  epistle  of 
the  series  is  dated  November  16,  1732  ;  and  in 
this  Gay  reports  that  he  has  "  come  to 'London 
before  the  family  to  follow  his  own  inventions," 
which  included  the  production  of  his  recently 
written  Opera  of"  Achilles."  A  few  days  later, 
he  was  attacked  by  a  constitutional  malady  to 
which  he  had  long  been  subject,  and  died  on 
the  4th  of  December.  After  lying  in  state  in 
Exeter  Change,  he  was  (says  Arbuthnot,  who 
had  again  nursed  and  attended  him)  "  interred 
at  Westminster- Abbey,  as  if  he  had  been 
a  peer  of  the  realm ;"  and  the  Queensberrys 
erected  a  handsome  monument  to  his  memory. 
By  other  friends  he  was  mourned  as  sincerely, 
if  not  as  sumptuously.  Pope,  who  had  always 
loved  him,  felt  a  genuine  sorrow,  and  five  days 
elapsed  before  Swift  at  Dublin  could  summon 
courage  to  open  the  boding  letter  which  an- 
nounced his  death.  His  fortune,  of  which  his 
patrons  had  made  themselves  the  voluntary 
stewards,  amounted  to  about  ^6000.  It  was 
divided  between  his  sisters,  Mrs.  Bailer  and 
Mrs.  Fortescue. 

His  last  letter  to  Swift  had  ended  :  —  "  Be- 
lieve me,  as  I  am,  unchangeable  in  the  regard, 
love  and  esteem  I  have  for  you."  The  words 
reveal  the  chief  source  of  his  personal  charm. 


John  Gay.  271 

He  was  thoroughly  kindly  and  affectionate, 
with  just  that  touch  of  clinging  in  his  character, 
and  of  helplessness  in  his  nature,  which,  when 
it  does  not  inspire  contempt  (and  Gay's  parts 
saved  him  from  that),  makes  a  man  the  spoiled 
child  of  men  and  the  playfellow  of  women. 
He  had  his  faults,  it  is  true  :  he  was  as  indolent  as 
Thomson,  as  fond  of  fine  clothes  as  Goldsmith  ; 
as  great  a  gourmand  as  La  Fontaine.  That  he 
was  easily  depressed,  was  probably  due  in  a 
measure  to  his  inactive  life  and  his  uncertain 
health.  But  at  his  best,  he  must  have  been 
a  delightfully  soothing  and  unobtrusive  com- 
panion—  invaluable  for  fetes  and  gala  days,  and 
equally  well  adapted  for  the  half  lights  and 
unrestrained  intercourse  of  familiar  life.  "You 
will  never  "  —  writes  Swift  to  the  Duchess  of 
Queensberry,  "  be  able  to  procure  another  so 
useful,  so  sincere,  so  virtuous,  so  disinterested, 
so  entertaining,  so  easy,  and  so  humble  a  friend, 
as  that  person  whose  death  all  good  men  lament." 
The  praise  is  high,  but  there  is  little  doubt  that 
it  was  genuine.  Pope's  antithetical  epitaph, 
despite  the  terrible  mangling  it  has  received  at 
the  hands  of  Johnson,  may  also  be  quoted:  — 

"  Of  manners  gentle,  of  affections  mild ; 
In  wit  a  man  ;  simplicity  a  child; 
With  native  humour  temp'ring  virtuous  rage, 
Formed  to  delight  at  once  and  lash  the  age  : 


272  Miscellanies. 

Above  temptation,  in  a  low  estate, 
And  uncorrupted,  e'en  among  the  great : 
A  safe  companion,  and  an  easy  friend, 
Unblamed  through  life,  lamented  in  thy  end, 
These  are  thy  honours  !  not  that  here  thy  bust 
Is  mixed  with  heroes,  or  with  kings  thy  dust, 
But  that  the  worthy  and  the  good  shall  say, 
Striking  their  pensive  bosoms  — Here  lies  Gay." 

The  monument  in  Westminster  Abbey,  for 
which  the  above  was  composed,  bears,  in 
addition,  a  flippant  couplet  of  Gay's  own  which 
can  only  have  been  —  as  indeed  it  is  stated  to 
have  been — the  expression  of  a  passing  mood. 

To  attempt  any  detailed  examination  of  Gay's 
works  is  unnecessary.  Those  which  are  most 
likely  to  attract  the  nineteenth  century  reader 
have  been  mentioned  in  the  course  of  the  fore- 
going pages.  Stripped  of  the  adventitious  cir- 
cumstances which  threw  the  halo  of  notoriety 
around  them,  his  two  best  known  plays  remain  of 
interest  chiefly  for  their  songs,1  which  have  all 

1  One  of  the  couplets  of  the  "  Beggar's  Opera  "  bids 
fair  to  live  as  long  as  Buridan's  two  bundles  of  hay.  "  How 
happy  could  I  be  with  either,  Were  t'  other  dear  Charmer 
away  !  "  —  was,  not  long  since,  employed  by  Sir  William 
Harcourt  in  the  House  to  illustrate  a  political  dilemma. 
Whereupon  Mr.  Goschen  neatly  turned  the  laugh  upon 
the  Leader  of  the  Opposition  by  continuing  the  quotation 
— "  But  while  you  thus  tease  me  together,  To  neither  a 
word  will  I  say  !  " 


John  Gay.  273 

the  qualities  songs  possess  when  the  writer, 
besides  being  a  poet,  is  a  musician  as  well. 
This  lyric  faculty  is  also  present  in  all  Gay's 
lesser  pieces,  and  is  as  manifest  in  the  ballad  on 
Molly  Mog  of  the  "  Rose  "  Inn  at  Wokingham, 
as  in  "  Black-Ey'd  Susan  "  or  "'Twas  when 
the  Seas  were  roaring."  In  his  longer  poems 
he  is  always  happiest  when  he  is  most  un- 
constrained and  natural,  or  treads  the  terra 
firma  of  the  world  he  knows.  The  "  Fan, "the 
miscellaneous  "  Eclogues,1'  the  "Epistles,"  are 
all  more  or  less  forced  and  conventional.  But 
exceptions  occur  even  in  these.  There  is  a 
foretaste  of  Fielding  in  "  The  Birth  of  the 
Squire;  "  and  the  "  Welcome  from  Greece,"  in 
which  he  exhibits  Pope's  friends  assembling  to 
greet  him  after  his  successful  translation  of  the 
"  Iliad,"  has  a  brightness  and  vivacity  of  move- 
ment, which  seems  to  be  the  result  of  an 
unusually  fresh  inspiration.  It  is  written,  more- 
over, in  an  ottava  rima  stanza  far  earlier  than 
Tennant's  or  Frere's  or  Byron's.  The  "  Tales  " 
are  mediocre,  and  generally  indelicate ;  the 
"  Translations  "  have  no  special  merit.  In  the 
"  Fables  "  Gay  finds  a  more  congenial  vocation. 
The  easy  octosyllabic  measure,  not  packed  and 
idiomatic  like  Swift's,  not  light  and  ironical  like 
Prior's,  but  ambling,  colloquial,  and  even  a 
18 


274  Miscellanies. 

little  down-at-heel,  after  the  fashion  of  the  bard 
himself,  suited  his  habits  and  his  Muse.  An 
uncompromising  criticism  might  perhaps  be  in- 
clined to  hint  that  these  little  pieces  are  by  no 
means  faultless  ;  that  they  are  occasionally 
deficient  in  narrative  art,  that  they  lack  real 
variety  of  theme,  and  that  they  are  often 
wearisome,  almost  unmanly,  in  their  querulous 
insistence  on  the  vices  of  servility  and  the 
hollowness  of  Courts.  On  the  other  hand,  it 
must  be  admitted  that  they  are  full  of  good 
nature  and  good  sense  ;  and  if  not  characterised 
by  the  highest  philosophical  wisdom,  show 
much  humorous  criticism  of  life  and  practical 
observation  of  mankind.  They  have,  too,  some 
other  recommendations,  which  can  scarcely  be 
ignored.  They  have  given  pleasure  to  several 
generations  of  readers,  old  and  young  ;  and  they 
have  enriched  the  language  with  more  than  one 
indispensable  quotation.  "  While  there  is  life, 
there's  Hope,"  "When  a  Lady's  in  the  Case," 
and  "  Two  of  a  Trade  can  ne'er  agree,"  —  are 
still  part  of  the  current  coin  of  conversation. 


AT   LEICESTER    FIELDS. 

IT  is  with  places  as  with  persons  ;  they  often 
attract  us  more  in  their  youth  than  in  their 
maturer  years.  Apart  from  the  fact  that  these 
papers  are  mainly  confined  to  the  Eighteenth 
Century,  this  threadbare  truth  affords  a  sufficient 
excuse  for  speaking  of  Leicester  Square  by  its 
earlier,  rather  than  by  its  existing  name.  And. 
indeed,  the  abiding  interest  of  the  locality  lies 
less  in  the  present  than  in  the  past.  Not  even 
the  addition  to  the  inclosure  of  busts  and  a 
Shakespeare  fountain  has  been  able  to  regener- 
ate entirely  the  Leicester  Square  that  most  of 
us  remember,  with  its  gloomy  back  streets,  — 
its  fringe  of  dingy  cafts  and  restaurants,  —  its 
ambiguous  print-  and  curiosity-shops,  —  its  in- 
corrigibly-unacclimatised  Alhambra,  whose  gar- 
ish Saracenic  splendours  scale  and  peel  per- 
petually in  London's  imber  edax.  If  we  call 
anything  forcibly  to  mind  in  connection  with 
the  spot,  it  is  a  certain  central  statue,  long  the 
mock  of  the  irreverent,  —  a  statue  of  the  first 
George,  which  had  come  of  old,  gilded  and 


276  Miscellanies. 

magnificent,  from  "  Timon's  Villa  "at  Canons, 
to  fall  at  last  upon  evil  days  and  evil  tongues, 
to  be  rudely  spotted  with  sacrilegious  paint,  to 
be  crowned  with  a  fool's  cap,  and,  finally,  to 
present  itself  to  the  spectator  in  the  generally 
dishonoured  and  dilapidated  condition  in  which, 
some  twenty  years  ago,  it  was  exhibited  by  the 
late  John  O'Connor  on  the  walls  of  the  Royal 
Academy.  But  when,  travelling  rapidly  back- 
wards, past  the  Empire  and  the  Alhambra,  past 
Wylde's  Globe  and  the  Panopticon,  past  Bur- 
ford's  Panorama  and  Miss  Linwood's  Needle- 
work, we  enter  the  last  century,  we  are  in  the 
Leicester  Fields  of  Reynolds  and  Hogarth,  of 
Newton  and  John  Hunter,  —  the  Leicester 
Fields  of  Sir  George  Savile  and  Frederick, 
Prince  of  Wales,  of  Colbert  and  Prince  Eugene. 
This  is  the  Leicester  Fields  of  which  we  pro- 
pose to  speak.  Leicester  Square  and  its  noto- 
rieties may  be  left  to  the  topographers  of  the 
future.1 

1  The  name  "  Leicester  Squaie  "  —  it  is  but  right  to  say 
—  is  also  of  fairly  early  date.  In  "  A  Journey  through 
England,"  4th  ed.(  1724,  i.  178,  the  writer,  speaking  of  the 
space  before  Leicester  House,  says:  "This  was  till  these 
Fourteen  Years  always  called  Leicester  Fields,  but  now 
Leicester  Square"  There  is,  however,  abundant  evidence 
that  the  older  name  continued  to  be  freely  used  through- 
out the  century.  For  example,  in  1783,  Mrs.  Hogarth's 


At  Leicester  Fields.  277 

It  is  in  Ralph  Agas  his  survey  of  1592  (or 
rather  in  Mr.  W.  H.  Overall's  excellent  fac- 
simile) that  we  make  our  first  acquaintance 
with  the  Fields,  then  really  entitled  to  their 
name.  According  to  Agas,  the  ground  to  the 
north-west  of  Charing  Cross,  and  immediately 
to  the  east  of  the  present  Whitcomb  Street  (at 
that  time  Hedge  Lane),  was  formerly  open  pas- 
ture land,  occupied  —  in  the  plan  —  by  a  pair  of 
pedestrians  larger  than  life,  a  woman  laying  out 
clothes,  and  two  nondescript  quadrupeds,  of 
which  one  is  broken-backed  beyond  the  licence 
of  deformity.  The  only  erections  to  be  discov- 
ered are  the  King's  Mews,  clustering  together 
for  company  at  the  back  of  the  Cross.  Sixty 
years  later,  judging  from  the  map  known  gener- 
ally as  Faithorne's,  the  ground  had  become 
more  populated.  To  the  right  of  St.  Martin's 
Lane,  it  is  thickly  planted  with  buildings  ;  to 
the  left  also  a  line  of  houses  is  springing  up  and 
creeping  northward,  while  in  the  open  space 
above  referred  to  stand  a  couple  of  lordly  man- 
sions. One,  on  a  site  which  must  have  lain  to 
the  north  of  the  present  Little  Newport  Street, 
is  Newport  House,  the  town  residence  of 

house  is  advertised  as  "  The  Golden  Head  in  Leicester 
Fields"  and  it  is  "  at  his  house  in  Leicester  Fields"  in  1792, 
that  Malone  makes  Reynolds  die. 


278  Miscellanies. 

Mountjoy  Blount,  Earl  of  Newport ;  the  other, 
which  occupies  ground  now  traversed  by  Lei- 
cester Place,  is  Leicester  House.  Its  garden 
at  the  back  extended  across  the  eastern  end  of 
Lisle  Street,  and  its  boundary  wall  to  the  north 
was  also  the  southern  boundary  wall  of  the  old 
Military  Garden  where  King  James's  son,  Prince 
Henry  of  Wales  —  whose  gallant  and  martial 
presentment  you  shall  see  figured  in  the  fore 
front  of  Michael  Drayton's  "  Poly-Olbion," — 
had  been  wont  to  exercise  his  troops,  and  make 
the  now-discredited  welkin  ring  with  the  shoot- 
ing-off  of  chambers,  with  alarums,  and  points 
of  war. 

Leicester  House  the  first  was  built  about 
1632-6  by  Robert  Sydney,  second  Earl  of 
Leicester,  the  father  of  Algernon  Sydney,  and 
of  that  beautiful  Dorothy,  afterwards  Countess 
of  Sunderland,  whom  Van  Dyck  painted,  and 
Waller  "  Petrarchised  "  as  Sacharissa.  The  site 
(Swan  Close) *  was  what  is  known  as  Lammas- 
land,  and  from  the  Overseers'  Books  of  the 
Parish  of  St.  Martin's  in  the  Fields,  the  Earl 
seems  not  only  to  have  paid  "  Lammas  "  for  "  the 

1  Cunningham  failed  to  identify  Swan  Close.  But 
from  a  letter  in  the  State  Paper  Office,  quoted  in  "  Temple 
Bar  "  for  June,  1874,  it  would  seem  that  this  was  the  actual 
site  of  the  building. 


At  Leicester  Fields.  279 

ground  that  adjoins  to  the  Military  Wall,"  but 
also  "for  the  field  that  is  before  his  house  "  —  i.  e. 
Leicester  Fields.  This  latter  probably  extended 
to  the  present  Orange  Street,  so  that  the  grounds 
of  the  old  mansion  may  be  roughly  said  to  be 
bounded  by  the  Mews  on  the  south,  and  by  the 
Military  Garden  on  the  north.  Few  memories 
cling  about  the  place  which  belong  to  Lord 
Leicester's  lifetime.  When  not  engaged  in  em- 
bassies and  the  like,  he  was  absent  at  his  other 
and  morejamous  seat  of  Penshurst  in  Kent,  and 
Leicester  House  was  "  To  Let."  One  of  the 
earliest  of  its  illustrious  tenants  was  that  quon- 
dam "Queen  of  Hearts"  (as  Howell  calls  her), 
the  unfortunate  Elizabeth  of  Bohemia,  who, 
already  smitten  with  her  last  illness,  died  there  in 
February,  1662,  after  a  few  days'  residence,  "  in 
the  arms"  (says  Evelyn)  "of  her  nephew  the 
King"  [Charles  II.].  Another  tenant,  some 
years  later,  was  Charles  Colbert,  Marquis  de 
Croissy,  the  French  Ambassador,  a  brother  of 
Louis  the  Fourteenth's  famous  minister  and 
financier ;  and  Pepys  records,  under  date  of 
2ist  October,  1668,  that  he  was  to  have  taken 
part  in  a  deputation  from  the  Royal  Society  to 
Lord  Leicester's  distinguished  lessee.  But  hav- 
ing unhappily  been  "  mighty  merry"  at  a  house- 
warming  of  his  friend  Batelier,  he  arrived  too 


280  Miscellanies. 

late  to  accompany  the  rest,  and  was  fain  to 
console  himself  (and  perhaps  to  do  penance)  by 
carrying  his  wife  to  Cow  Lane,  Smithfield,  in 
order  to  inspect  a  proposed  new  coach,  with  the 
splendours  of  which  "  she  is  out  of  herself  for  joy 
almost,"  although,  from  the  sequel,  it  was  not 
the  one  ultimately  purchased. 

Pepys,  as  will  be  seen,  did  not  actually  enter 
Leicester  House,  at  all  events  upon  this  occa- 
sion. His  brother  diarist  was  more  fortunate. 
Going  in  October,  1672,  to  take  leave  of  the 
second  Lady  Sunderland  (Sacharissa's  daughter- 
in-law),  whose  husband  had  already  set  out  as 
ambassador  to  Paris,  grave  John  Evelyn  was 
entertained  by  Her  Ladyship  with  the  perform- 
ances of  Richardson  the  fire-eater,  who,  in  those 
days,  enjoyed  a  vogue  sufficient  to  justify  the 
record  of  his  prowess  in  the  "  Journal  des  Sea- 
vans  "  for  1680.  "He  devour'd  brimston  on 
glowing coales  before  us,"  says  Evelyn,  "chew- 
ing and  swallowing  them  ;  he  mealted  a  beere- 
glasse  and  eate  it  quite  up ;  then  taking  a  live 
coale  on  his  tongue,  he  put  on  it  a  raw  oyster, 
the  coal  was  blown  on  with  bellows  till  it  flam'd 
and  sparkTd  in  his  mouth,  and  so  remain'd  till 
the  oyster  gaped  and  was  quite  boil'd  ;  then  he 
mealted  pitch  and  wax  with  sulphur,  which  he 
drank  downe  as  it  flam'd  ;  I  saw  it  flaming  in  his 


At  Leicester  Fields.  281 

mouth  a  good  while ;  he  also  tooke  up  a  thick 
piece  of  yron,  such  as  laundresses  use  to  put  in 
their  smoothing-boxes,  when  it  was  fiery  hot, 
held  it  betweene  his  teeth,  then  in  his  hand,  and 
threw  it  about  like  a  stone,  but  this  I  observ'd 
he  car'd  not  to  hold  very  long ;  then  he  stood 
on  a  small  pot,  and  bending  his  body,  tooke  a 
glowing  yron  with  his  mouth  from  betweene 
his  feete,  without  touching  the  pot  or  ground 
with  his  hands ;  with  divers  other  prodigious 
feates." x 

Lord  Leicester  closed  a  long  life  in  1677,  and 
many  other  tenants  afterwards  occupied  the 
mansion  in  the  Fields.  Under  Anne  it  was  the 
home  of  the  German  Ambassador,  or  "  Imperial 
Resident,"  who  lived  in  it  far  into  the  reign  of 
the  first  George.  At  this  time,  judging  from  a 
water-colour  bird's-eye  view  in  the  Grace  Collec- 
tion at  the  British  Museum,  it  was  a  long  two- 
storied  building,  with  attics  above,  a  court- 
yard in  front,  and  a  row  of  small  shops  or  stalls 
extending  on  either  side  of  its  entrance  gate. 
Behind  came  the  garden,  stretching  northward, 
and  decorated  in  the  Dutch  fashion  with  formal 
trees  and  statues.  Hither,  on  a  Saturday  in 
January,  1712,  conveyed  unostentatiously  in  a 

1  "Memoirs  of  John  Evelyn,"  etc.,  1827,  ii.  pp.  375-6. 


282  Miscellanies. 

hackney  coach  from  Whitehall  Stairs,  came 
Eugene  of  Savoy,  who,  by  desire  of  the  Emperor 
Charles  VI.,  had  just  crossed  from  the  Hague 
in  Her  Majesty's  "Yacht  '  Fubs '"  (Captain 
Desborough),  with  the  intention  of  preventing, 
if  possible,  what  Prior  calls  that  "vile  Utrecht 
Treaty."  His  mission  was  to  be  fruitless  from 
the  outset,  for  at  the  Nore  he  was  greeted  with 
the  news  of  Maryborough's  disgrace,  and  his 
presence  in  England  had  little  or  no  effect  upon 
the  pending  proposals  for  peace.  But  for  two 
months  he  was  to  be  feted  and  lionised  by  the 
nobility  in  a  way  which  —  modest  warrior  and 
discreet  diplomatist  as  he  was —  must  have  taxed 
his  resources  as  much  as  a  campaign  in  Flanders. 
His  admirers  mobbed  him  on  all  occasions.  "  I 
could  not  see  Prince  Eugene  at  court  to-day,"  — 
writes  Swift  to  Mrs.  Johnson  at  Dublin,  —  "  the 
crowd  was  so  great.  The  Whigs  contrive  to 
have  a  crowd  always  about  him,  and  employ  the 
rabble  to  give  the  word  when  he  sets  out  from 
any  place."  Elsewhere  Swift  had  said  —  "  I  hope 
and  believe  he  comes  too  late  to  do  the  Whigs 
any  good."  At  first  His  Highness's  appearance 
prepossessed  him.  He  is  not  ill-looking,  "  but 
well  enough,  and  a  good  shape."  Later  on,  he 
has  revised  his  opinion.  "  I  saw  Prince  Eugene 
at  court  to-day  very  plain.  He  is  plaguy  yellow, 


At  Leicester  Fields.  283 

and  literally  ugly  besides."  A  great  Tory  lady, 
Lady  Strafford  (wife  of  that  haughty  Envoy  to 
the  Hague  who  declined  to  serve  with  Prior  in 
the  Utrecht  negotiations)  goes  farther  still.  She 
calls  him  —  her  Ladyship  spells  far  worse  than 
Stella  —  a  "  frittfull  creature,"  and  adds,  "the 
Ladys  here  dont  admire  Prince  Eugene,  for  he 
seemes  to  take  very  little  notis  of  them,"  —  a 
sentiment  in  which  we  may  perhaps  detect  a 
spice  of  the  "  spreta?  injuria  formce" 

Much,  indeed,  depends  upon  the  point  of  view, 
political  and  otherwise.  To  Steele,  with  his 
military  instincts  and  quick  enthusiasm,  the  great 
Captain,  who  surprised  Cremona  and  forced  the 
trenches  of  Turin,  comes  surrounded  with  an 
aura  of  hyperbole.  "  He  who  beholds  him,"  he 
writes  in  "  Spectator,"  No.  340,  "  will  easily  ex- 
pect from  him  anything  that  is  to  be  imagined 
or  executed  by  the  Wit  or  Force  of  Man.  The 
Prince  is  of  that  Stature  which  makes  a  Man 
most  easily  become  all  Parts  of  Exercise  ;  has 
Height  to  be  graceful  on  Occasions  of  State  and 
Ceremony,  and  no  less  adapted  for  Agility  and 
Dispatch  ;  His  Aspect  is  erect  and  compos'd  ; 
his  Eye  lively  and  thoughtful,  yet  rather  vigilant 
than  sparkling  :  His  Action  and  Address  the 
most  easy  imaginable,  and  his  Behaviour  in  an 
Assembly  peculiarly  graceful  in  a  certain  Art  of 


284  Miscellanies. 

mixing  insensibly  with  the  rest,  and  becoming 
one  of  the  Company,  instead  of  receiving  the 
Courtship  of  it.  The  Shape  of  his  Person,  and 
Composure  of  his  Limbs,  are  remarkably  exact 
and  beautiful."  Burnet,  as  staunch  a  Whig  as 
Steele,  writes  more  moderately  to  the  same 
effect.  "  I  had  the  honour  to  be  admitted  at 
several  times,  to  much  discourse  with  him  ;  his 
Character  is  so  universally  known,  that  I  will 
say  nothing  of  him,  but  from  what  appeared  to 
myself.  He  has  a  most  unaffected  Modesty, 
and  does  scarcely  bear  the  Acknowledgments, 
that  all  the  World  pay  him  :  He  descends  to  an 
easy  Equality  with  those,  with  whom  he  con- 
verses ;  and  seems  to  assume  nothing  to  himself, 
while  he  reasons  with  others :  He  was  treated 
with  great  respect  by  both  Parties  ;  but  he  put 
a  distinguished  Respect  on  the  Duke  of  Marl- 
borough,  with  whom  he  passed  most  of  his  Time.1 
The  Queen  used  him  civilly,  but  not  with  the 
Distinction,  that  was  due  to  his  high  Merit : 
Nor  did  he  gain  much  ground  with  the  Minis- 
ters."2 

1  It  was  for  Marlborough,  no  doubt,  that  the  Prince 
sat  to  Kneller.     The  portrait,  in  which   he  wears   the 
Order  of  the  Golden  Fleece  over  a  rich  coat  of  armour, 
and  holds  a  marshal's  baton,  was  mezzotinted  by  John 
Simon  in  1712. 

2  "  History  of  His  Own  Time,"  ii.  (1734),  pp.  589-90. 


At  Leicester  Fields.  285 

Eugene's  stay  at  Leicester  House  was  brief; 
but  it  must  have  been  fully  occupied.  "  Je 
caressais  beaucoup  les  gens  en  place,"  he  writes 
in  his  "  M£moires,"and  it  is  clear  that,  however 
attentive  he  may  have  been  to  his  fallen  comrade- 
in-arms  of  Blenheim  and  Oudenarde,  he  did  not 
omit  to  pay  assiduous  court  to  those  in  power. 
"He  has  been  every  day  entertain'd  at  some  great 
man's/'  says  gossiping  Peter  Wentworth.  Lord 
Portland  gives  him  "  dinner,  musick  and  a  danc- 
ing "  all  at  once  ;  the  Duke  of  Shrewsbury  has 
Nicolini  to  sing  for  him  ;  the  Duke  of  Bucking- 
ham turns  out  the  militia  in  his  honour.  And  so 
forth.  He,  in  his  turn,  was  not  backward  in  re- 
sponding. "  Prince  Eugene,"  says  Lady  Strafford, 
"  has  given  an  order  to  six  ladys  and  six  men. 
The  ladys  are  the  four  Marlborough  daughters 
and  the  Duchess  of  Bolton  and  Lady  Berkely. 
'T  is  a  medall  —  Cupid  on  won  side  with  a  sword 
in  won  hand  and  a  fann  in  the  othere,  and  the 
othere  side  is  Cupid  with  a  bottle  in  his  hand 
with  a  sword  run  through  it.  And  the  motto's 
are  in  French  which  I  dare  not  write  to  you  but 
the  English  is  '  won  don't  hinder  the  othere' 
["  L'un  n'empfiche  pas  1'autre  "1."  He  had  ar- 
rived in  London  on  January  $,  and  he  returned  to 
Holland  on  March  17,  carrying  with  him  nothing 
but  the  diamond  hiked  sword  ("  very  rich  and 


286  Miscellanies. 

genteele,  and  the  diamonds  very  white,"  says  Lord 
Berkeley  of  Stratton),  which,  at  a  cost  of  ;£)Ooo, 
had  been  presented  to  him  by  Queen  Anne.1 
After  this  Leicester  House  continued  to  be  the 
home  of  the  German  Resident,  apparently  one 
Hoffmann,  whom  Swift  calls  a  "  puppy."  But  he 
had  also  called  Hoffmann's  predecessor,  Count 
Gallas,  a  "  fool,"  and  too  much  importance  may 
easily  be  attached  to  these  mere  flowers  of  speech. 
About  1718,  the  house,  being  again  to  let,  was 
bought  for  _£6ooo  by  George  Augustus,  Prince  of 
Wales,  who  had  quarrelled  with  his  father ;  and 
a  residence  of  the  Princes  of  Wales  it  continued 
for  forty  years  to  come. 

This  was  perhaps  the  gayest  time  in  its  history. 

1  If  he  received  royal  gifts,  he  was  also  princely  in  his 
acknowledgments.  According  to  Hearne  (Doble,  1889, 
iii.  329),  he  paid  twenty  guineas  for  Joshua  Barnes's  quarto 
"Homer"  of  1711,  and  fifteen  guineas  for  Whiston's 
"  Heretical  Book."  He  also  paid  thirty  guineas  for  Samuel 
Clarke's  edition  of  "  Cassar's  Commentaries  (Tonson, 
1712),"  then  just  published  with  a  magnificent  portrait  of 
Marlborough,  to  whom  it  was  dedicated.  A  large  paper 
copy  of  this,  sumptuously  bound,  fetched  sixteen  guineas 
at  Dr.  Mead's  sale  of  1754-5;  but  though  it  is  praised  by 
Addison  in  "  Spectator,"  No.  367,  as  doing  "  Honour  to  the 
English  Press,"  Eugene  certainly  gave  too  much.  Prob- 
ably he  meant  to  do  so.  "  Je  fis  des  presens,"  he  says 
("  Memoires,"  181 1,  p.  107) ;  "  car,"  he  adds  significantly, 
"  on  achete  beaucoup  en  Angleterre." 


At  Leicester  Fields.  287 

From  the  precision  and  decorum  of  St.  James's, 
people  flocked  eagerly  to  the  drawing-rooms  and 
receptions  of  Leicester  House,  where  the  fiddles 
were  always  going.  "  Balls,  assemblies  and  mas- 
querades have  taken  the  place  of  dull  formal 
visiting,"  writes  my  Lord  Chesterfield,  •'  and  the 
women  are  more  agreeable  triflers  than  they  were 
designed.  Puns  are  extremely  in  vogue,  and  the 
license  very  great.  The  variation  of  three  or 
four  letters  in  a  word  breaks  no  squares,  inas- 
much, that  an  indifferent  punster  may  make  a 
very  good  figure  in  the  best  companies.'1  He 
himself  was  one  of  the  most  brilliant  luminaries 
of  that  brilliant  gathering,  delighting  the  Prince 
and  Princess  by  his  mimicry  and  his  caustic 
raillery.  Another  was  that  eccentric  Duchess  of 
Buckingham,  who  passed  for  the  daughter  of 
James  II.  by  Catharine  Sedley,  Countess  of  Dor- 
chester, and  who  always  sat  in  a  darkened  cham- 
ber, in  the  deepest  mourning,  on  the  anniversary 
of  King  Charles's  execution.  Thus  she  was  dis- 
covered by  Lord  Hervey,  surrounded  by  ser- 
vants in  sables,  in  a  room  hung  with  black,  and 
lighted  only  by  wax  candles.  But  the  most  at- 
tractive figures  of  the  Prince's  Court  are  the 
youthful  maids  of  honour, — charming,  good- 
humoured  Mary  Bellenden,  Mary  Lepel  (to 
whom  an  earlier  paper  in  these  volumes  has 


288  Miscellanies. 

been  devoted),1  and  reckless  and  volatile  Sophia 
Howe.  Pope  and  Gay  wrote  them  verses,  — 
these  laughing  damsels,  —  and  they  are  often 
under  contemporary  pens.  Miss  Bellenden  mar- 
ried Colonel  John  Campbell,  and  became  a 
happy  wife  ;  the  "  beautiful  Molly  Lepel  "  paired 
off  with  John,  Lord  Hervey,  whose  pen-portrait 
by  Pope  exhausts  the  arts  of  "  conscientious 
malevolence,"  while  poor  Sophia  Howe  fell  in 
love,  but  did  not  marry  at  all,  and  died  in  1726 
of  a  broken  heart. 

When,  in  June,  1727,  George  II.  passed  from 
Leicester  House  to  the  throne  of  England,  an- 
other Prince  of  Wales  succeeded  him,  —  though 
not  immediately,  —  and  maintained  the  traditions 
of  an  opposition  Court.  This  was  Frederick, 
Prince  of  Wales.  Bubb  Dodington,  afterwards 
Lord  Melcombe,  was  the  Chesterfield  of  this 
new  regime,  and  Miss  Chudleigh  and  Lady  Mid- 
dlesex, its  Bellenden  and  Lepel.  Political  in- 
trigue alternated  with  gambling  and  theatricals. 
One  of  the  habitues  was  the  dancing  master  Des- 
noyers,  whom  Hogarth  ridiculed  ;  and  French 
comedians  made  holiday.  "  The  town,"  says  an 
historian  of  the  Square,  "  was  at  this  time  full  of 
gaiety  —  masquerades,  ridottos,  Ranelagh  in  full 

1  See  "  Mary  Lepel,  Lady  Hervey,"  in  "  Eighteenth 
Century  Vignettes,"  Third  Series,  pp.  292-322. 


At  Leicester  Fields.  289 

swing,  and  the  Prince  a  prominent  figure  at  all, 
for  he  loved  all  sorts  of  diversion,  from  the 
gipsies  at  kNorwood,  the  conjurors  and  fortune- 
tellers in  the  bye-streets  about  Leicester  Fields, 
and  the  bull-baits  at  Hockley-in-the-Hole,  to 
Amorevoli  at  the  Opera,  and  the  Faussans  in  the 
ballet.  When  the  news  came  of  the  Duke  of 
Cumberland  having  lost  the  battle  of  Fontenoy 
in  May,  174^,  the  Prince  was  deep  in  prepara- 
tion for  a  performance  at  Leicester  House  of 
Congreve's  masque  of  "  The  Judgment  of  Paris," 
in  which  he  played  Paris.  He  himself  wrote  a 
French  song  for  the  part,  addressed  to  the  three 
rival  goddesses,  acted  by  Lady  Catherine  Han- 
mer,  Lady  Fauconberg,  and  Lady  Middlesex, 
the  dame  regnante  of  the  time.  It  is  in  the  high 
Regency  vein  :  — 

" '  Venez,  mes  cheres  Deesses, 

Venez,  calmez  mon  chagrin ; 
Aidez,  mes  belles  Princesses, 

A  le  noyer  dans  le  vin. 
Poussons  cette  douce  ivresse 

Jusqu'au  milieu  de  la  nuit, 
Et  n'ecoutons  que  la  tendresse 

D'un  charmant  vis-a-vis.' " 

"  What  signifies  if  Europe  Has  a  tyrant  more 
or  less,  So  we  but  pray  Calliope  Our  verse  and 
song  to  bless  "  —  proceeds  this  Anacreontic  per- 
19 


290  Miscellanies. 

formance  ;  and  Walpole  copies  out  its  entire  five 
stanzas  to  send  to  Mann  at  Florence.  They 
miscarry,  he  says,  "in  nothing  but  the  language, 
the  thoughts  and  the  poetry,"  —  a  judgment 
which  is  needlessly  severe. 

In  March,  1751,  an  end  came  to  these  light- 
hearted  junketings,  when  His  Royal  Highness 
quitted  the  scene  almost  precipitately  from  the 
breaking  of  an  abscess  in  his  side,  caused  by  the 
blow  of  a  cricket-ball  at  Cliveden.  The  Princess 
and  her  children  continued  to  live  in  Leicester 
Fields  until  1766.  Meanwhile,  to  the  accom- 
paniment of  trumpets  and  kettledrums,  the  old 
house  witnessed  the  proclamation  of  George  III., 
and  the  marriage,  in  its  great  drawing-room,  of 
the  Princess  Augusta  to  Ferdinand,  Hereditary 
Prince  of  Brunswick,  one  of  the  most  popular 
heroes  ever  huzzaed  to  by  an  English  mob. 
After  this  last  occurrence,  the  only  important 
event  connected  with  royalty  in  the  Fields  is  the 
death  at  Savile  House  on  29th  December,  1765, 
of  one  of  the  princes.  "The  King's  youngest 
brother,  Prince  Frederick,"  writes  Walpole 
(with  one  of  those  Gallic  affectations  of  phrase 
which  roused  the  anger  of  Macaulay)  "  is  dead 
of  a  dropsy  and  consumption  :  he  was  a  pretty 
and  promising  boy." 

The   Savile    House  above  referred  to  stood 


At  Leicester  Fields.  291 

next  to  Leicester  House  on  the  west.  Savile 
House,  too,  was  not  without  its  memories.  It 
was  here  that  Peter  the  Great  had  boozed  with 
his  pot  companion,  the  Marquis  of  Caermarthen, 
who  occupied  it  when  the  Czar  made  his  famous 
visit  to  this  country  in  1698.  More  than  one 
English  home  bore  dirty  testimony  to  the  pas- 
sage of  the  imperial  savage  and  his  suite,  the 
decorous  dwelling  of  John  Evelyn,  in  particular, 
at  Sayes  Court,  Deptford,  being  made  "right 
nasty."  There  is,  however,  no  special  record 
of  any  wrong  to  Savile  House  beyond  the  spill- 
ing, down  the  autocratic  throat,  of  an  "  intoler- 
able deal  of  sack"  and  peppered  brandy.  In 
January,  1718,  the  house  was  taken  by  the 
Prince  of  Wales,  and  when,  a  little  later,  Lei- 
cester House  was  vacated  by  Lord  Cower,  a 
communication  was  opened  between  the  two, 
the  smaller  being  devoted  to  the  royal  children. 
It  belonged  originally  to  the  Aylesbury  family, 
and  came  through  them  to  the  Saviles,  one  of 
whom  was  the  Sir  George  Savile  who  is  by 
some  supposed  to  have  sat  for  Goldsmith's  Mr. 
Burchell.  Sir  George  was  its  tenant  in  the  riots 
of  '80,  when  (as  Dickens  has  not  failed  to  re- 
member in  "  Barnaby  Rudge  ")  it  was  besieged 
by  the  rioters  because  he  had  brought  in  the 
Catholic  Bill.  "  Between  Twelve  and  One 


292  Miscellanies. 

O'clock  Yesterday  morning  [June  6th]  "  —  says 
the  "  Public  Advertiser  "  —  "a  large  Body  [of 
rioters]  assembled  before  Sir  George  Savile's 
House  in  Leicester  Fields,  and  after  breaking 
all  the  Windows,  destroyed  some  of  the  Furni- 
ture." They  were  finally  dispersed  by  a  party 
of  the  Horse  Grenadier  Guards,  but  not  before 
they  had  torn  up  all  the  iron  railings  in  front  of 
the  building,  which  they  afterwards  used  effec- 
tively as  weapons  of  offence.  Burke,  who  had 
also  supported  the  Bill,  was  only  saved  from  a 
like  fate  by  the  exertions  of  sixteen  soldiers 
who  garrisoned  his  house  in  Charles  Street,  St. 
James's  Square.  With  the  later  use  of  Savile 
House,  as  the  home  of  Miss  Linwood's  Art 
Needlework,  which  belongs  to  the  present 
century,  this  paper  has  nothing  to  do. 

Moreover,  we  are  straying  from  Leicester 
House  itself.  Deserted  of  royalty,  it  passed  into 
the  hands  of  Mr.,  afterwards  Sir  Ashton  Lever 
(grand  uncle  of  Charles  Lever  the  novelist),  who 
transferred  to  it  in  1771  the  miscellaneous  collec- 
tion he  had  christened  the  "  Holophusikon  "  —  a 
name  which  did  not  escape  the  gibes  of  the  pro- 
fessional jester.  H  is  omnium  gatherum  of  natural 
objects  and  savage  costumes  was,  nevertheless, 
a  remarkable  one,  still  more  remarkable  when 
regarded  as  the  work  of  a  single  man.  It  filled 


At  Leicester  Fields.  293 

sixteen  of  the  rooms  at  Leicester  House,  besides 
overflowing  on  the  staircases,  and  included,  not 
only  all  the  curiosities  Cook  had  brought  home 
from  his  voyages,  but  also  a  valuable  assortment 
of  bows  and  arrows  of  all  countries  contributed 
by  Mr.  Richard  Owen  Cambridge  of  Twicken- 
ham.1 Its  possessor  had  been  persuaded  that  his 
treasures  which,  in  their  first  home  at  Alkring- 
ton  near  Manchester,  had  enjoyed  great  popu- 
larity, would  be  equally  successful  in  London. 
The  result,  however,  did  not  justify  the  expec- 
tation (an  admittance  of  <,$.  jd.  per  person  must 
have  been  practically  prohibitive),  and  poor  Sir 
Ashton  was  ultimately  "  obligated  "  as  Tony 
Lumpkin  would  say,  to  apply  to  Parliament  for 
power  to  dispose  of  his  show,  as  a  whole,  by 
lottery.  He  estimated  his  outlay  at  ^0,000. 
Of  36,000  tickets  issued  at  a  guinea  each,  only 
8000  were  taken  up.  The  lottery  was  drawn  in 
March,  1786,  and  the  winner  was  a  Mr.  Parkin- 
son, who  transferred  his  prize  to  the  Rotunda  at 

1  See  "  Cambridge  the  Everything,"  in  "  Eighteenth 
Century  Vignettes,"  Third  Series,  pp.  178-204.  In  an  out- 
house of  the  "  Holophusikon,"  it  may  be  added,  were  ex- 
hibited (stuffed)  Queen  Charlotte's  elephant  and  female 
zebra  —  two  favourites  of  royalty,  which,  during  their  life- 
time, had  enjoyed  an  exceptional,  if  not  always  enviable, 
notoriety. 


294  Miscellanies. 

the  Southern  or  Surrey  end  of  Blackfriars  Bridge, 
changing  its  name  to  the  Museum  Leverianum. 
But  it  was  foredoomed  to  misfortune,  and  in 
1806  was  dispersed  under  the  hammer.  A  few 
years  after  it  had  crossed  the  river,  Leicester 
House  in  turn  disappeared,  being  pulled  down 
in  1790. l  In  1791  Lisle  Street  was  continued 
across  its  garden  ;  and  a  little  later  still,  Leices- 
ter Place  traversed  its  site,  running  parallel  to 
Leicester  Street,  which  had  existed  long  pre- 
viously, being  described  in  1720,  "  as  ordinarily 
built  and  inhabited,  except  the  west  side,  towards 
the  Fields,  where  there  is  a  very  good  house." 

Leicester  Place  and  Leicester  Street,  —  like 
Leicester  Fields  itself,  —  directly  preserve  the 
memory  of  what  Pennant  aptly  calls  the  "  pout- 
ing-place  of  Princes."  But  there  are  other 
traces  of  Leicester  House  in  the  nomenclature 
of  the  neighbourhood  which  had  grown  up  about 
it.  One  of  the  family  titles  survives  in  "  Lisle 
Street";  another  in  "Sidney  Alley."  Bear 
Street  again  recalls  the  Leicester  crest,  a  bear 
and  ragged  staff,  while  Green  Street  (one  side  of 

1  A  house  in  Lisle  Street,  looking  down  Leicester  Place, 
still  (1898)  perpetuates  the  name,  and  bears  on  its  facade 
in  addition  the  words,  "  New  Lisle  Street,  MDCCXCI." 
It  is  occupied  by  a  foreign  school  or  schools  ("ficoles 
de  Notre  Dame  de  France "). 


At  Leicester  Fields.  295 

which  has  been  recently  rebuilt),  according  to 
Wheatley  and  Cunningham,  derives  its  name 
from  the  colour  of  the  Leicester  Mews,  which 
stood  to  the  south  of  the  Fields.  The  central 
inclosure  seems  to  have  been  first  systematically 
laid  out  —  though  it  had  long  been  railed  round 
—  about  1737.  Eleven  years  later  arrived  from 
Canons  (Lord  Burlington's  seat  at  Edgeware) 
that  famous  equestrian  statue  of  George  I., 
which  Londoners  so  well  remember.  At  the 
time  of  its  erection  it  was  lavishly  gilt,  and  was 
one  of  the  popular  sights  of  the  Town.  By  some 
it  was  attributed  to  Buchard  ;  by  others  to  Van 
Nostof  Piccadilly,  once  a  fashionable  statuary  (in 
lead)  like  Cheere  of  Hyde  Park  Corner.  The 
horse  was  modelled  upon  that  by  Hubert  Le  Sceur 
which  carries  King  Charles  I.  at  Charing  Cross. 
Considering  its  prolonged  patronage  by  roy- 
alty, Leicester  Fields  does  not  seem  to  have 
been  particularly  favoured  by  distinguished  resi- 
dents. Charles  Dibdin,  the  song-writer,  once 
lived  in  Leicester  Place,  where  in  1796  (on  the 
east  side)  he  built  a  little  theatre,  the  Sans  Souci ; 
and  Woollett,  of  whose  velvety  engravings  Mr. 
Louis  Fagan,  not  many  years  ago,  prepared  an 
exhaustive  catalogue,  had  also  his  habitat  in 
Green  Street  (No.  1 1),  from  the  leads  of  which 
he  was  wont  —  so  runs  the  story — to  discharge 


296  Miscellanies. 

a  small  cannon  when  he  had  successfully  put 
the  last  touches  to  a  "  Battle  of  La  Hogue,"  or 
a  "  Death  of  General  Wolfe."  Allan  Ramsay  (in 
his  youth),  Barry,  and  John  Opie  all  once  lodged 
in  Orange  Court  (now  Street)  ;  and  here  —  at 
No.  13  — was  born,  of  a  shoemaker  sire  and  a 
mother  who  cried  oysters,  into  a  life  of  many 
changing  fortunes,  that  strange  Thomas  Hoi- 
croft  of  the  "  Road  to  Ruin."  In  St.  Martin's 
Street,  next  door  to  the  Congregational  Chapel 
on  the  east  side,  lived  Sir  Isaac  Newton  from 
1710  until  January,  1725,  or  two  years  before 
his  death  at  Kensington.  Few  traditions,  how- 
ever, connect  the  abstracted  philosopher  (he  was 
nearing  seventy  when  he  came  to  the  Fields) 
with  the  locality,  beyond  his  visits  to  Princess 
Caroline  at  the  great  house  opposite.1  But 

1  A  so-called  Observatory  on  the  roof,  now  non-exist- 
ent, was  for  many  years  exhibited  as  Newton's.  Recent 
authorities,  however,  contend  that  this  was  the  fabrication 
of  a  later  tenant.  But  it  should  be  noted  that  Madame 
D'Arblay,  who  also  lived  in  the  house,  and  wrote  novels 
in  the  room  in  question,  seems  to  have  had  no  doubts  of 
the  kind.  She  says  ("  Memoirs  of  Dr.  Burney,"  1832,  i. 
290-1)  that  her  father  not  only  reverently  repaired  the 
Observatory  when  he  entered  upon  his  tenancy  of 
No.  35  [in  1774],  but  went  to  the  expense  of  practically 
reconstructing  it  when  it  was  all  but  destroyed  by  the 
hurricane  of  1778. 


At  Leicester  Fields.  297 

there  was  one  member  of  his  household,  a  few 
years  later,  who  must  certainly  have  added  to 
the  attractions  of  the  ordinary  two-storied  build- 
ing where  he  superintended  the  revision  of  the 
second  and  third  editions  of  the  "  Principia.1' 
This  was  his  kinswoman,  —  the  "  jo  lie  niece  "  of 
Voltaire,  — the  "  famous  witty  Miss  Barton"  of 
the  "  Gentleman's  Magazine."  At  this  date  she 
was  "  Super-intendant  of  his  domestick  Affairs" 
to  Charles,  Earl  of  Halifax,  who,  dying  in  171 $, 
left  her  ^ooo  and  a  house,  "  as  a  Token  "  — 
so  runs  the  bequest  —  "of  the  sincere  Love, 
Affection,  and  Esteem  I  have  long  had  for  her 
Person,  and  as  a  small  Recompence  for  the 
Pleasure  and  Happiness  I  have  had  in  her  Con- 
versation." This,  taken  in  connection  with  the 
fact  that,  since  1706,  she  had  been  in  receipt 
of  an  annuity  of  ^200  a  year,  purchased  in  her 
uncle's  name,  but  for  which  Halifax  was 
trustee,  has  led  to  the  conclusion  that  the  rela- 
tion between  the  pair  was  something  closer  than 
friendship,  and  that,  following  other  contempo- 
rary precedents,  they  were  privately  married.1 

1  See  "  Newton  :  his  Friend  :  and  his  Niece,"  1885,  by 
Professor  Augustus  de  Morgan,  which  labours,  with  much 
digression,  but  with  infinite  ingenuity  and  erudition,  to 
establish  this  satisfactory  solution  of  a  problem  in  which 
the  good  fame  of  Newton  cannot  be  regarded  as  entirely 
unconcerned. 


298  Miscellanies. 

Be  this  as  it  may,  Catherine  Barton  is  also  in- 
teresting as  one  of  the  group  of  gifted  women  to 
whom  Swift  extended  the  privilege  of  that  half- 
patronising,  half-playful,  and  wholly  unconven- 
tional intimacy  which  is  at  once  the  attraction 
and  the  enigma  of  his  relations  with  the  other 
sex.  He  met  her  often  in  London,  though  not 
as  often  as  he  wished.  "I  love  her  better  than 
any-one  here,"  he  tells  Stella  in  April,  1711, 
"  and  see  her  seldomer."  He  dines  with  her 
"  alone  at  her  lodgings";  he  goes  with  her  to 
other  houses  ;  and,  Tory  though  he  has  become, 
endures  her  vivacious  Whiggery. 

When,  at  Halifax's  death,  Catherine  Barton, 
in  all  probability,  returned  to  her  uncle's  house, 
Swift  had  already  gone  back  to  Ireland,  and 
there  is  no  reason  for  supposing  that,  although 
he  had  lodgings  "  in  Leicester  Fields  "  in  1711, 
he  ever  visited  his  friend  in  St.  Martin's  Street. 
In  August,  1717,  Mrs.  Barton  married  John 
Conduitt,  M.  P.,  Newton's  successor  as  Master 
of  the  Mint,  and  when  in  town  continued  to  re- 
side with  her  husband  under  Newton's  roof. 
And  though  Halifax  was  dead,  and  Swift  in 
exile,  and  Prior  "  in  the  messenger's  hand," 
there  can  be  little  doubt  that  during  her  brief 
widowhood(?)  and  second  wifehood,  those 
friends  who  had  clustered  about  the  former 


At  Leicester  Fields.  299 

toast  of  the  Kit  Cats  must  still  have  continued 
to  visit  her.  The  chairs  of  Lady  Worsley  and 
Lady  Betty  Germaine  must  often  have  waited 
in  the  narrow  entrance  to  St.  Martin's  Street, 
while  the  ladies  "disputed  Whig  and  Tory" 
with  Mrs.  Conduitt,  or  were  interrupted  in  their 
tete-&-t8te  by  Gay  and  his  Duchess.  After  Sir 
Isaac  —  a  long  while  after — the  most  notable 
tenant  of  the  old  house  was  Dr.  Charles  Burney, 
author  of  the  "  History  of  Music,"  and  of 
Fanny  Burney.  Indeed,  it  was  in  this  very 
building  —  with  the  unassuming  little  chapel  on 
its  right  where  "  Rainy  Day"  Smith  had  often 
heard  Toplady  preach — that  a  mere  girl  in  her 
teens — no,  ungallant  Mr.  Croker  discovered 
her  to  have  been  actually  a  young  woman  of 
five-and-twenty  —  wrote  that  "  Evelina"  which, 
in  1778,  took  the  Town  by  storm.  There  were 
panelled  rooms  and  a  painted  ceiling  in  the 
Newton-Burney  house  of  yore,  but  it  could 
scarcely  be  here  that  the  little  person  whom  in 
her  graver  moments  Mrs.  Piozzi  nicknamed  the 
"Lady  Louisa  of  Leicester  Square"  danced 
round  an  unmetaphoric  mulberry  tree  with  de- 
light at  her  success  in  letters,  as  there  are  no 
traces  of  a  garden.  At  present,  in  this  quiet 
backwater  of  street  traffic,  where  Burke  and 
Johnson  and  Franklin  and  Reynolds  all  came 


300  Miscellanies. 

formerly  to  visit  their  favourite  authoress,  noth- 
ing is  discoverable  but  a  dingy  tenement  with 
dusty  upper  windows,  with  a  ground  floor  that 
is  used  as  a  day  school,  and  a  front  of  stucco'd 
red  brick  upon  which  the  blue  tablet  of  the 
Society  of  Arts  has  something  of  the  forlorn  effect 
of  an  order  of  merit  upon  a  chimney-sweep. 

Turning  out  of  St.  Martin's  Street  on  the 
north  another  tablet  is  discernible  in  the  angle  of 
the  Fields  to  the  right  upon  the  comparatively 
modern  red  brick  facade  of  another  school, 
known  as  Archbishop  Tenison's.  Here,  at  one 
of  the  many  signs  of  the  "Golden  Head,"  lived 
William  Hogarth.1  The  golden  head  in  his  case 
was  rudely  carved  by  himself  out  of  pieces  of 
cork  glued  together,  and  represented  Van  Dyck. 
To  this,  says  Nichols,  succeeded  a  head  in  plas- 
ter ;  and  this  again,  when  Nichols  wrote  in  1782, 
had  been  replaced  by  a  bust  of  Newton.  About 
the  interior  of  the  house  very  little  seems  to  be 
known,  but,  as  it  was  rated  to  the  poor  in  1756 
at  ;£6o,  it  must  have  been  fairly  roomy.  In  the 
later  days,  when  it  formed  part  of  the  Sabloniere 

1  There  was  even  another,  in  Hogarth's  day,  in  the 
Fields  itself.  "  At  the  Golden  Head,"  on  the  south  side 
(Hogarth's  was  on  the  east),  lived  Edward  Fisher,  the 
mezzotint  engraver,  to  whom  we  owe  so  many  brilliant 
plates  after  Reynolds. 


At  Leicester  Fields.  301 

Hotel,  before  the  hotel  made  way  for  the  exist- 
ing school,  there  were  traditions  of  a  studio,  prob- 
ably far  less  authentic  than  those  of  Sir  Isaac's 
observatory.  Not  many  years  after  Hogarth 
first  took  the  house,  the  square  was  laid  out 
(it  had  long  been  railed  in),  and  he  is  said  to 
have  been  often  seen  walking  in  the  inclosure, 
wrapped  in  his  red  roquelaure,  with  his  hat  cocked 
on  one  side  like  Frederick  the  Great.  His 
stables,  when  he  set  up  the  fine  coach  which 
Charles  Catton  decorated  for  him  with  the 
famous  Cyprian  crest  that  figures  at  the  bottom 
of  "  The  Bathos,"  were  in  the  Nag's  Head  Yard,1 
Orange  Street.  He  had  —  as  we  know  —  a 
country  box  at  Chiswick  ;  but  he  was  at  home 
in  Leicester  Fields.  His  friends  were  about 
him.  Kind  old  Captain  Coram  had  lodgings 
somewhere  in  the  neighbourhood ;  Pine,  the 
"  Friar  Pine"  of  "  Calais  Gate,"  lived  in  St. 
Martin's  Lane  ;  beyond  that,  in  Covent  Garden 
and  its  vicinity,  were  George  Lambert  the  scene 
painter,  Saunders  Welch  the  magistrate,  Richard 
Wilson,  Fielding,  and  a  host  of  intimates.  It 
was  in  Leicester  Fields  that  Hogarth  died.  He 
had  been  driven  there  from  Chiswick  on  the 

1  The  site  of  the  Nag's  Head  —  an  ancient  and  wooden- 
galleried  inn  —  is  now  [1898]  occupied  by  the  new  prem- 
ises of  Messrs.  Macmillan  and  Co. 


302  Miscellanies. 

2)th  of  October,  1764,  cheerful,  but  very  weak. 
"  Receiving  an  agreeable  letter  from  the  Ameri- 
can Dr.  Franklin,"  says  Nichols,  [he]  "  drew 
up  a  rough  draught  of  an  answer  to  it ;  but  go- 
ing to  bed,  he  was  seized  with  a  vomiting,  upon 
which  he  rung  his  bell  with  such  violence  that 
he  broke  it,  and  expired  about  two  hours  after- 
wards in  the  arms  of  Mrs.  Mary  Lewis,  who 
was  called  up  on  his  being  taken  suddenly  ill." 
He  is  buried  in  Chiswick  churchyard,  where 
some  years  subsequently  a  monument  was 
erected  to  his  memory,  with  a  well-known 
epitaph  by  Garrick.  After  Hogarth's  death 
his  widow  continued  to  keep  up  the  "  Golden 
Head,"  and  Mary  Lewis  sold  his  prints  there. 
Richard  Livesay,  the  engraver,  was  one  of 
Widow  Hogarth's  lodgers,  and  the  Scotch 
painter,  Alexander  Runciman,  was  another.  If 
the  house  had  any  further  notable  occupants, 
they  may  be  forgotten. 

Mrs.  Hogarth  herself  died  in  1789.  Six  years 
before  her  death  she  had  a  next-door  neighbour 
in  the  Fields,  who,  in  his  way,  was  as  illus- 
trious as  Hogarth  or  Reynolds.  This  was  John 
Hunter,  who,  in  1783,  became  the  tenant  of 
No.  28, l  and  at  once  began  extending  it  back- 

1  Now  rebuilt  by  the  Alhambra  Company  as  part  of 
their  premises. 


At  Leicester  Fields.  303 

ward  towards  Castle  Street  (now  the  Charing 
Cross  Road)  to  receive  his  famous  museum  of 
Comparative  and  Pathological  Anatomy.  Ho- 
garth had  then  been  dead  for  nearly  twenty 
years  ;  and  it  is  unlikely  that  the  painter  knew 
much  of  the  young  surgeon  who  was  subse- 
quently to  become  so  celebrated  ;  but  he  was 
probably  acquainted  with  his  brother,  William 
Hunter  of  Covent  Garden,  who  attended  Field- 
ing in  1754.  William  Hunter  had  just  died 
when  John  Hunter  came  to  Leicester  Fields. 
John  lived  there  ten  years  in  the  height  of  his 
activity  and  fame,  and  it  was  during  this  period 
that  Reynolds  painted  that  portrait  of  him  in  a 
reverie  (now  in  the  Council  Room  of  the  Col- 
lege of  Surgeons),  which  was  engraved  by 
William  Sharp.  He  survived  Sir  Joshua  but 
one  year. 

The  house  of  Reynolds  was  at  the  opposite 
side  of  the  Square,  at  No.  47,  now  Puttick  and 
Simpson's  auction  rooms.  He  occupied  it  from 
1760  to  1792.  We  are  accustomed  to  think  of 
Hogarth  and  Reynolds  as  contemporaries.  But 
Reynolds  was  in  the  pride  of  his  prime  when  he 
came  to  Leicester  Fields,  while  Hogarth  was 
an  old  and  broken  man,  whose  greatest  work 
was  done.  Apart  from  this,  there  could  never 
have  been  much  real  sympathy  between  them. 


304  Miscellanies. 

Hogarth,  whose  own  efforts  as  a  portrait-painter 
were  little  appreciated  in  his  lifetime,  must  have 
chafed  at  the  carriages  which  blocked  up  the 
doorway  of  his  more  fortunate  brother  ;  while 
Reynolds,  courtly  and  amiable  as  he  was,  cap- 
able of  indulgence  even  to  such  a  caricaturist  as 
Bunbury,  could  find  for  his  illustrious  neighbour, 
when  he  came  to  deliver  his  famous  Fourteenth 
Discourse,  no  warmer  praise  than  that  of  "  suc- 
cessful attention  to  the  ridicule  of  life."  These 
things,  alas !  are  scarcely  novelties  in  literature 
and  art.  It  is  pleasanter  to  think  of  No.  47 
filled  with  those  well-known  figures  of  whom 
we  read  in  Boswell  and  Madame  D'Arblay  ;  — 
with  Burke  and  Johnson  and  Goldsmith  and 
Gibbon  and  Garrick  ;  — with  graceful  Angelica, 
and  majestic  Siddons,  and  azure-stockinged 
Montagu  ;  —  with  pretty  Nelly  O'Brien  and 
charming  Fanny  Abington  ;  —  with  all  the 
crowd  of  distinguished  soldiers,  sailors,  lawyers, 
and  literati  who  by  turns  filled  the  sitters'  chair1 
in  the  octagonal  painting-room,  or  were  ushered 
out  and  in  by  the  silver-laced  footmen.  Then 
there  were  those  wonderful  disorderly  dinners, 

1  This,  with  the  carved  easel  given  to  him  by  Gray's 
friend  Mason,  is  preserved  at  the  Royal  Academy.  His 
palette  is  said  to  be  in  the  possession  of  Messrs.  Roberson 
and  Co.,  of  99,  Long  Acre. 


At  Leicester  Fields.  305 

where  the  guests  were  so  good  and  the  feast  so 
indifferent ;  where  there  were  always  wit  and 
learning,  and  seldom  enough  of  knives  and  forks  ; 
where  it  was  an  honour  to  have  talked  and  lis- 
tened, and  no  one  remembered  to  have  dined. 
Last  comes  that  pathetic  picture  of  Sir  Joshua, 
when  his  sight  had  failed  him,  wandering  sadly 
in  the  inclosure  with  his  green  shade  over  his 
eyes,  and  peering  wistfully  and  vainly  for  the 
lost  canary  which  had  been  wont  to  perch  upon 
his  finger. 

When  Reynolds  died,  Burke  wrote  his  eulogy 
in  the  very  house  where  his  body  lay.  The 
manuscript  (which  still  exists)  was  blotted  with 
its  writer's  tears.  Those  royal  periods  in  which 
the  great  orator  spoke  of  his  lost  friend  are 
too  familiar  to  quote.  But  after  Sir  Joshua, 
the  interest  seems  to  fade  out  of  the  Fields, 
and  one  willingly  draws  one's  pen  through  the 
few  remaining  names  that  are  written  in  its 
chronicles. 


MARTEILHE'S   "  MEMOIRS." 
THE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  BOOK. 

THE  threadbare  dictum  of  Terentianus  Mau- 
rus  touching  books  and  their  destinies,  was 
never  more  exactly  verified  than  by  the  story  of 
the  record  which  gives  its  title  to  the  present 
paper.  In  the  year  1757  was  issued  at  Rotter- 
dam, by  J.  and  D.  Beman  and  Son  of  that 
Batavian  city,  a  little  thick  octavo  of  552  pages, 
on  poor  paper  with  worse  type,  of  which  the 
following  is  the  textual  title :  —  "  Mdmoires  d'un 
Protestant,  Condamnt  aux  Galeres  de  France 
pour  Cause  de  Religion ;  Merits  par  lui  m$me : 
Ouvrage,  dans  lequel,  outre  le  re"cit}  des  souffrances 
de  I'Auteur  depuis  1700  jusqu'en  1713  ;  on  trou- 
vera  diverses  Particularite's  curieuses,  relatives 
a  rHistoire  de  ce  Temps-la,  6*  une  Description 
exacte  des  Galeres  6-  de  leur  Service,"  In  1774 
a  second  edition  of  the  book  was  published  at 
the  Hague,  to  be  followed  four  years  later  by  a 
third.  In  the  Rotterdam  impression  the  names 
of  some  of  the  personages  and  localities  had  been 
simply  indicated  by  initials;  in  the  third  issue 
of  1778  —  the  author  having  died  not  many 


Marteilhe  s  "  Memoirs."  307 

months  before  —  these  particulars  were  inserted 
at  full.  It  then  appeared  that  the  "  Memoirs" 
—  concerning  the  authenticity  of  which,  from 
internal  evidence,  there  could  never  have  been 
any  reasonable  doubt  —  were  those  of  a  certain 
Jean  Marteilhe  of  Bergerac  on  the  Dordogne, 
in  the  Province  of  PeYigord  in  France,  and  that 
they  had  been  edited  and  prepared  for  the  press 
from  Marteilhe 's  own  manuscripts  by  M.  Daniel 
de  Superville  —  probably  the  second  of  that 
name,  since  Daniel  de  Superville,  the  elder,  a 
notable  personage  among  the  leaders  of  the 
Reformed  Church,  had  long  been  dead  when 
the  work  appeared  in  its  first  form. 

Circulating  chiefly  among  the  members  of  a 
proscribed  community,  and  published  in  a  for- 
eign country,  these  remarkable  autobiographical 
experiences,  notwithstanding  their  three  edi- 
tions, had  been  practically  lost  sight  of  in  France 
until  some  thirty  years  ago  ;  and  the  account  of 
their  revival  —  as  partly  recorded  in  a  lengthy 
note  to  the  excellent  "  Formats  pour  la  Foi  "  of 
M.  A.  Coquerel  Fils  —  is  sufficiently  curious. 
About  1865,  according  to  M.  Coquerel,  copies 
of  the  volume  were  so  rare  as  to  be  practically 
unobtainable.  There  was  none  in  the  Biblio- 
theque  Nationale  of  France ;  and  the  only  ex- 
ample known  in  Paris  belonged  to  a  Protestant 


308  Miscellanies. 

banker,  M.  FeTix  Vernes,  by  whom  it  had  been 
lent  occasionally  to  historical  students  and  con- 
noisseurs. At  Amsterdam  there  was  a  second 
copy  in  the  library  of  M.  Van  Woortz,  and  it  was 
believed  that  other  copies  existed  in  Holland. 
There  was  also,  or  at  all  events  there  is  now,  a 
copy  at  the  British  Museum.  Meanwhile,  the 
book  had  greatly  impressed  the  fortunate  few 
into  whose  hands  it  had  come.  Michelet,  who 
makes  mention  of  it  both  in  his  "  Louis  XIV.  et 
le  Due  de  Bourgogne,"  and  his  " Louis  XIV.  et 
la  Revocation"  spoke  of  it  in  terms  of  the  high- 
est enthusiasm.  It  was  written,  he  said,  "  comme 
entre  terre  et  del."  Why  was  it  not  reprinted  ? 
he  asked.  The  reply  lay  no  doubt  in  the  diffi- 
culty of  procuring  a  copy  to  print  from  ;  and  its 
eventual  reproduction  was  the  result  of  an  acci- 
dent. In  a  catalogue  of  German  books,  M. 
Francois  Vidal,  pastor  of  the  Reformed  Church 
at  Bergerac,  came  upon  the  title  of  a  work  pur- 
porting to  relate  the  history  of  a  fugitive  Cami- 
sard.  Himself  a  native  of  the  Cevennes,  and 
therefore  specially  interested  in  the  subject,  he 
sent  for  the  volume,  only  to  discover  that,  in- 
stead of  relating  to  the  "  fanatics  of  Languedoc  " 
(as  Gibbon  calls  them),  it  was  really  an  account 
of  a  Perigourdin  Protestant  who,  after  the  Revo- 
cation, more  than  a  century  and  a  half  earlier, 


Marteilhe's  "  Memoirs.1"  309 

of  the  Edict  of  Nantes,  had  fled  from  that  very 
Bergerac  in  which  he  (M.  Vidal)  was  then 
exercising  his  calling.  He  had  seen  some  ex- 
tracts from  M.  Vernes'  copy  of  Marteilhe's 
"Memoirs,"  as  those  extracts  had  been  made 
public  in  the  Journal  of  an  Historical  Society 
(the  Bulletin  de  la  Socie'te'  de  VHistoire  du  Protes- 
tantisme  frangais),  and  he  felt  convinced  that, 
notwithstanding  certain  (to  him)  transparent  dis- 
guises of  personages  and  localities,  he  was  read- 
ing, in  German,  the  story  of  Jean  Marteilhe. 
He  accordingly  wrote,  through  the  publisher 
of  the  German  book,  to  its  author,  who  proved 
to  be  the  copious  Dr.  Christian  Gottlob  Barth, 
the  founder  of  the  Calwer  Verlags-Verein  in 
Wurtemburg,  and  a  well-known  writer  on  theo- 
logical subjects.  Dr.  Barth  informed  M.  Vidal 
that  the  material  for  the  adventures  of  his  sup- 
posititious Camisard,  whom  he  had  christened 
Mantal,  had  been  derived  from  F.  E.  Ram- 
bach's  "Schicksal  der  Protestanten  in  Frank- 
re'ich,"  a  work  published  at  Halle  in  1760,  and 
alleged  to  be  no  longer  procurable.  Thereupon 
M.  Vidal  set  about  reconstructing  the  history  in 
the  light  of  this  discovery.  He  translated  Earth's 
summary  into  French,  restored  to  Marteilhe  the 
name  of  which  Barth,  with  nothing  but  initials 
in  his  source  of  information,  had  been  ignorant, 


3  io  Miscellanies. 

and  then  (having  by  good  luck  chanced  upon  a 
copy  of  the  Rotterdam  edition  at  Le  Fleix,  not 
many  miles  from  Bergerac),  incorporated  with 
his  version  some  of  the  more  striking  passages 
of  the  original  record.  Why  he  did  not  at  once 
substitute  that  original  for  the  summary,  is,  in  all 
probability,  to  be  explained  by  difficulties  in  the 
way  of  obtaining  prolonged  access  to  the  Le 
Fleix  copy.  But  the  revelation  of  Marteilhe  to 
France,  even  in  mangled  form,  was  still  to  be 
deferred.  A  portion  of  M.  Vidal's  book  had  no 
sooner  made  its  appearance  in  L'Eglise  Rdformde, 
a  journal  issued  at  Nfmes,  than  that  journal  was 
suddenly  suppressed.  In  1863  he  therefore 
printed  on  his  own  account  what  he  had  written, 
in  the  form  of  a  small  i2mo  pamphlet.  One 
result  of  this  publication  —  to  which  he  still 
somewhat  unaccountably  gave  the  title  of  "La 
Fuite  du  Camisard" — was  to  stimulate  search 
for  further  copies  of  the  original  "  Memoirs," 
another  of  which  was  found  soon  after  in  La 
Vende'e,  and  was  acquired  by  the  Bibliotheque 
Nationale.  Finally,  in  1865,  the  Socittt  des 
licoles  du  Dimanche  printed  the  complete  text 
from  the  copy  of  M.  Vernes  with  four  fancy 
illustrations  by  the  marine  artist,  Morel-Fatio,1 

1  M.  Antoine  Leon   Morel-Fatio,  whose  illustrations 
are  not  reproduced  in  the   English  and  American   edi- 


Marteilhe's  "Memoirs.  311 

and  a  Preface  and  Appendices  by  M.  Henri 
Paumier.  Of  this,  four  thousand  copies  were 
sold  between  1865  and  1881,  in  which  latter  year 
a  new  and  revised  edition,  with  a  second  Preface 
by  M.  Paumier,  was  put  forth.  In  the  interim, 
an  English  version  was  published  under  the 
auspices  of  the  Religious  Tract  Society,  which, 
in  addition  to  a  translator's  Preface,  gave  some 
further  particulars  respecting  Marteilhe  himself, 
said  to  be  derived  from  an  article  in  the  Quarterly 
Review  for  July,  1866,  though  they  are  there 
admittedly  taken  from  M.  Coquerel.  To  these 
again,  some  slight  supplementary  contributions 
were  made  by  the  French  editor  in  his  new  and 
revised  edition  of  1881.  The  translation  of  the 
Religious  Tract  Society  was  also  issued  in  New 
York  in  1867  by  Messrs.  Leypoldt  and  Holt 
under  the  title  of  "The  Huguenot  Galley- 
Slave." 

From  what  has  been  stated,  it  will  be  seen 
that,  previously  to  the  issue  by  the  SoddM  des 
Ecoles  da  Dimanche,  no  edition  of  the  origi- 
nal "  Memoirs  "  had  been  published  in  France. 

tions,  should  have  been  well  qualified  for  his  task.  He  is 
described  as  the  "  Horace  Vernet  of  the  sea-piece,"  and 
was  a  worthy  rival  of  Isabey  and  Gudin.  He  died  of 
grief  at  the  Louvre  in  1871,  when  the  Prussians  entered 
Paris. 


3 1 2  Miscellanies 

But  it  will  also  be  observed  that,  as  early  as 
1760,  or  only  three  years  after  their  first  appear- 
ance in  the  United  Provinces  of  the  Nether- 
lands, those  "  Memoirs"  had  been  incorporated 
in  abridged  form  with  Rambach's  "  Schicksal 
der  Protestanten  in  Frankreich."  What  is  per- 
haps even  more  remarkable  is  that — as  M. 
Coquerel  and  the  English  translator  of  1866  did 
not  fail  to  point  out  —  they  had  been  translated 
earlier  still  in  England,  where,  indeed,  they 
appear  to  have  attracted  immediate  attention  in 
their  first  form,  since  the  Monthly  Review  for 
May,  1757,  includes  them  in  its  "  Catalogue  of 
Foreign  Publications."  They  must  have  been 
"  Englished"  shortly  afterwards,  for,  in  Febru- 
ary, 1758,  Ralph  Griffiths  of  the  "  Dunciad  "  in 
Paternoster  Row,  the  proprietor  of  the  Monthly 
Review,  and  Edward  Dilly  of  the  "  Rose  and 
Crown" in  the  Poultry,  issued  conjointly,  in  two 
volumes  i2tno,  a  version  entitled  "  The  Memoirs 
of  a  Protestant,  Condemned  to  the  Galleys  of 
France,  for  His  Religion.  Written  by  Himself." 
To  this  followed  upon  the  title-page  a  lengthy 
description  of  the  contents,  differing  from  that 
of  the  French  original,  in  so  far  as  it  laid  stress 
upon  the  fact  that  the  "  Protestant"  was  "at 
last  set  free,  at  the  Intercession  of  the  Court  of 
Great  Britain  "  ;  —  and  the  work  was  further 


Marteilhe's  "Memoirs.''  313 

stated  to  be  "Translated  from  the  Original, 
just  published  at  the  Hague  [Rotterdam?], 
by  James  Willington."  For  this  enigmatical 
"James  Willington,"  whose  name  as  an  author 
is  otherwise  entirely  unknown  to  fame,  it  has 
long  been  the  custom  to  read  "  Oliver  Gold- 
smith." Goldsmith,  in  fact,  was  actually  en- 
gaged as  a  writer  of  all  work  upon  the  Monthly 
Review  when  the  Rotterdam  edition  was  an- 
nounced among  its  foreign  books.  To  the 
same  May  number  in  which  that  announcement 
appeared,  he  supplied  notices  of  Home's 
"  Douglas,"  of  Burke  "  On  the  Sublime  and 
Beautiful,"  and  of  the  new  four-volume  issue  of 
Colman  and  Thornton's  Connoisseur.  He  con- 
tinued to  work  for  Griffiths'  magazine  until  the 
September  following,  when,  for  reasons  not  now 
discoverable  with  certainty,  he  ceased  his  con- 
tributions to  its  pages. 

What  appears  to  be  the  earliest  ascription  to 
his  pen  of  the  English  version  of  the  "  Memoirs" 
of  Marteilhe  is  to  be  found  in  the  life  prefixed 
by  Isaac  Reed  to  the  "  Poems  of  Goldsmith 
and  Parnell,"  179$.  Here  he  is  stated  to  have 
received  twenty  guineas  for  the  work  from  Mr. 
Edward  Dilly.  The  next  mention  of  it  occurs 
in  the  biographical  sketch  by  Dr.  John  Aikin 
in  the  "  Goldsmith's  Poetical  Works"  of  1805. 


314  Miscellanies. 

Dr.  Aikin  says  (p.  xvi.)  that  Goldsmith  sold  the 
book  to  Dilly  for  twenty  guineas.  Prior  ("  Life 
of  Goldsmith,"  1837,  i.  252)  confirms  this,  upon 
the  authority  of  Reed  ;  and  he  further  alleges, 
though  without  giving  his  authority,  that  Griffiths 
''acknowledged  it  [the  translation]  to  be  by 
Goldsmith."  Forster  follows  suit  (1848,  p.  107  ; 
and  1877,  i.  129)  by  stating  that  "  the  property 
of  the  book  belonged  to  Griffiths,"  and  that 
"  the  position  of  the  translator  appears  in  the 
subsequent  assignment  of  the  manuscript  by  the 
Paternoster  Row  bookseller  to  bookseller  Dilly 
of  the  Poultry,  at  no  small  profit  to  Griffiths,  for 
the  sum  of  twenty  guineas."  Reed,  it  will  be 
observed,  says  that  Goldsmith  received  the 
twenty  guineas  ;  Aikin,  that  Goldsmith  sold  the 
book  ;  Prior,  as  usual,  writes  so  loosely  as  to 
be  ambiguous,  and  Forster,  although,  in  his  last 
edition,  he  cites  Reed  and  Aikin  as  his  authori- 
ties, affirms  that  Griffiths  sold  it  to  Dilly.  None 
of  these  statements  would  seem  to  be  exactly 
accurate.  The  translation  of  the  "  Memoirs  of 
a  Protestant "  was  in  reality  sold  by  the  author 
—  much  as,  some  years  since,  it  was  ascertained 
that  the  "  Vicar  of  Wakefield  "  was  sold  1  —  in 
three  separate  shares.  By  the  kindness  of  the 

1  See  the  Preface  to  the  facsimile  Reproduction  of  the 
First  Edition,  Elliot  Stock,  1885. 


Marteilhe's  "Memoirs.'"  315 

late  Mr.  Edward  Ford  of  Enfield,  a  devoted 
student  of  Goldsmith,  the  present  writer  was 
favoured  with  a  transcript  of  Goldsmith's  receipt 
for  one  of  these  shares  from  the  hitherto  unpub- 
lished original  in  Mr.  Ford's  possession.1  It 
runs  as  follows  :  — 

LONDON,  Jan?  n'J1,  1758 

Rec'd  of  Mr  Edward  Dilly  six  pounds  thirteen  shillings 
and  four  pence,  in  full  for  his  third  share  of  my  transla- 
tion of  a  Book  entitled  Memoirs  of  a  Protestant  condemned 
to  the  Gallics  for  Religion,  &c. 

OLIVER  GOLDSMITH. 
£  6  ly.  tf. 

From  this  document — the  signature  only  of 
which  is  in  the  handwriting  of  the  poet  —  two 
things  are  clear,  —  first,  that  Goldsmith  himself 
sold  the  book  to  Dilly  and  two  others,  one  being 
Griffiths,  whose  name  is  on  the  title-page  ;  and, 
secondly,  that  the  translation  was  by  Goldsmith 
and  not  by  James  Willington. 

But  why,  it  may  be  asked,  was  the  name  of 
Willington  (an  old  Trinity  College  acquaintance 
of  Goldsmith)  put  forward  in  this  connection  ? 
The  question  is  one  to  which  it  is  not  easy  to  give 
an  entirely  satisfactory  answer.  Mr.  Forster, 

1  This  interesting  relic  now  [1898]  belongs  to  his  son 
and  successor,  Mr.  J.  W.  Ford,  of  Enfield  Old  Park. 


316  Miscellanies. 

it  is  true,  does  not  feel  any  difficulty  in  replying. 
"  At  this  point,"  he  says,  "  there  is  very  mani- 
fest evidence  of  despair."  But  it  is  a  character- 
istic of  Mr.  Forster's  sympathetic  and  admira- 
ble biography  that  it  occasionally  appears  to  be 
written  under  the  influence  of  preconceptions, 
and  the  evidence  he  mentions,  however  manifest, 
is  certainly  not  produced.  Mr.  Forster  fills  the 
gap  with  eloquent  disquisition  on  the  obstacles 
in  the  path  of  genius,  and  so  conducts  his  hero 
back  to  Dr.  Milner's  door  at  Peckham.1  How 
Goldsmith  subsisted  in  the  interval  between  his 
ceasing  to  write  regularly  for  the  Monthly  Review 
and  his  return  to  his  old  work  as  an  usher,  is  no 
doubt  obscure.  But  it  is  probable  that  there 
was  little  variation  in  his  manner  of  living, 
although  his  labours  were  not  performed  under 
surveillance  in  the  Back  Parlour  of  the  "  Dun- 
ciad."  It  has  been  discovered  that  about  this 
time  he  was  contributing  portions  of  a  "  History 

1  "  Time's  devouring  hand,"  it  may  be  noted  here  (for 
the  Chronicler  of  the  fugitive  must  make  his  record  where 
he  can),  has  now  removed  all  trace  of  Dr.  John  Milner's 
Peckham  Academy,  which  stood  in  Goldsmith  Road 
(formerly  Park  Lane),  opposite  the  southern  end  of 
Lower  Park  Road.  "  Goldsmith  House,"  as  it  was  called 
latterly,  was  pulled  down  in  1891.  A  sketch  of  it  appeared 
in  the  Daily  Graphic  for  24th  February  in  that  year. 


Marteilhe's  "Memoirs."  317 

of  Our  Own  Times  "  to  the  Literary  Magazine  ; 
and  it  is  also  conjectured  that  these  were  not 
his  sole  contributions  to  that  and  other  peri- 
odicals. Moreover,  the  version  of  Marteilhe's 
"  Memoirs  "  must  have  been  made  in  the  last 
months  of  1757,  since  the  above  receipt  is  dated 
January  n,  17^8,  and  the  book  was  published 
in  the  following  February.  In  addition  to  this, 
he  was  again,  by  his  own  account,  attending 
patients  as  a  doctor.  "  By  a  very  little  practice 
as  a  physician,  and  a  very  little  reputation  as  a 
poet"  —  he  tells  his  brother-in-law,  Hodson,  in 
December,  1757,  "  I  make  a  shift  to  live." 
He  was  in  debt,  no  doubt ;  but  he  had  already, 
says  the  same  communication,  "  discharged  his 
most  threatening  and  pressing  demands.1'  Upon 
the  whole,  —  Mr.  Forster's  "  very  manifest  evi- 
dence "  not  being  forthcoming,  —  it  must  be 
concluded  that  Goldsmith's  position  after  ceas- 
ing to  write  for  the  Monthly  Review  (though  not 
for  Griffiths)  was  much  what  it  had  been  before 
that  event,  perhaps  even  better,  because  he  was 
more  free  ;  and  this  being  so,  we  are  driven  to 
the  commonplace  solution  that,  even  in  his  Salis- 
bury Square  garret,  he  was  too  conscious  of 
those  higher  things  within  him  to  care  to  iden- 
tify himself  with  a  mere  imitation  "out  of  the 
French,"  executed  for  bread,  and  not  for  repu- 


318  Miscellanies. 

tation  ;  and  that  he  put  Willington's  name  to  the 
book  in  default  of  a  better.  He  gave  evidence 
of  his  genius  in  his  most  careless  private  letter ; 
he  could  not  help  it ;  but  the  man  who  subse- 
quently refrained  from  signing  the  "  Citizen  of 
the  World,"  may  be  excused  from  signing  the 
translated  "  Memoirs  of  a  Protestant." 

That  the  translation  produced  under  these 
conditions  might  have  been  better  if  the  trans- 
lator had  taken  more  pains,  is  but  to  turn  Gold- 
smith's bon  mot  against  himself.  "  Verbum 
verbo  reddere "  was  scarcely  his  ambition,  and 
those  who  wish  for  plain-sailing  fidelity  will  do 
well,  if  they  cannot  compass  the  French  original, 
to  consult  the  rendering  prepared  for  the  Re- 
ligious Tract  Society.1  The  chief  merits  of  the 
version  of  1758  are  first,  that  it  is  a  con- 
temporary version,  demonstrably  from  Gold- 
smith's pen  ;  and  secondly,  that  it  is  Goldsmith's 
earliest  appearance  in  book-form.  It  is  not 
only  characterised  by  its  writer's  unique  and 
peculiar  charm,  but  it  is  as  delightful  to  read  as 
any  of  his  acknowledged  journey-work.  Even 
Griffiths  of  the  "  Dunciad,"  who  reviewed  it 
himself  in  the  Monthly  Review  for  May,  1758, 

1  This  rendering,  however,  is  incomplete,  inasmuch  as 
it  omits  the  "  Description  of  the  Galleys,"  etc.,  about 
ninety  of  the  final  pages  of  the  original. 


Marteilhe's  "Memoirs."  319 

cannot  deny  its  merits  in  this  respect.    Speaking 
of  the  "ingenious  Translator,"  he  remarks  that 
he  "  really  deserves  this  epithet,  on  account  of 
the  spirit  of  the  performance,  tho',"   he  adds, 
grudgingly,    <l  we   have    little   to    say   in   com- 
mendation  of  his  accuracy.     Upon  this  latter 
count,  it  may  be  observed  that  in  one  instance, 
at   least,  inaccuracy  is   excusable.     In   telling, 
early  in  the  book,  the  story  of  the  abjuration  by 
Marteilhe's  mother  of  her  Huguenot  faith,  Gold- 
smith makes  her  add  to  her  declaration  that  she 
was  "  compelled  by  Fear."     This  is  manifestly 
inexact,  seeing  that  the  French  original  runs  : 
"  Elle  ajouta  ces  mots :  la  Force  me  le  fait  faire, 
faisant  sans  doute  allusion  au  nom  du  Due  "  (i.  e. 
the  Duke  de  la  Force).     All  this,  as  we  know, 
must  have  been  Greek  to  Goldsmith,   because 
the  names  in  the  editio  princeps  of  1717,  from 
which  he  was  working,  were  not  given  at  full. 
But  it  must  certainly  be  admitted  that  he  deals 
freely   with   his   text,  occasionally    suppressing 
altogether  what  he  regards  as  redundant,  and  now 
and  then  inserting  supplementary  touches  of  his 
own.     Speaking   of  the    soup   prepared  in  the 
gaol  at  Lille  he   says  :    "  Even   Laced&monian 
black    Broth    could   not   be    more   nauseous." 
There  is  nothing  in  the  text  of  this  classic  die- 
tary, and  what  is  more,  Marteilhe  would  scarcely 


po  Miscellanies. 

have  used  the  simile.  Elsewhere  the  decoration 
is  in  what  Matthew  Arnold  used  to  call  the 
"  Rule  Britannia"  vein.  Of  the  valiant  captain 
of  the  Nightingale  who  held  his  own  so  long 
against  the  galleys  in  that  memorable  engagement 
which  plays  such  a  moving  part  in  Marteilhe's 
record,  the  writer  says :  "  Ce  capitaine,  qui 
n  avail  plus  rien  a  faire  pour  mettre  sa  flotte  en. 
surete",  rendit  son  6pee."  This  Goldsmith  trans- 
lates :  "  At  last  the  captain  gave  up  his  Sword 
without  further  Parley,  like  a  true  Englishman, 
despising  Ceremony,  when  Ceremony  could  be 
no  longer  useful." 

Dealing  in  this  place  rather  with  the  story 
of  the  book  than  its  contents,  it  would  be  beyond 
the  purpose  of  our  paper  to  linger  longer  upon 
the  extraordinary  interest  and  simple  candour  cf 
Marteilhe's  narrative.  But  the  mention  just 
made  of  the  captain  of  the  Nightingale  reminds 
us  that  some  further  particulars  respecting  this 
obscure  naval  hero  were  not  long  since  brought 
to  light  by  Professor  J.  K.  Laughton.1  His 
name  (which  Marteilhe  had  forgotten)  was  Seth 
Jermy,  and  he  had  served  as  a  lieutenant  at  the 
battle  of  Barfleur.  He  became  captain  of  the 
Spy  brigantine  in  January,  1697,  and  five  years 
later  was  appointed  to  the  command  of  the 

1  English  Historical  Review,  January,  1889,  pp.  65-80. 


Marteilhe's  "Memoirs."1  321 

Nightingale,  a  small  24-gun  frigate,  chiefly  em- 
ployed in  convoying  corn-ships  and  colliers 
between  the  Forth,  the  Tyne,  the  H umber,  and 
the  Thames.  In  this  duty  he  was  engaged  up 
to  the  fight  with  the  French  galleys,  which  took 
place,  not,  as  Marteilhe  says,  in  1708,  but  in 
1707.  In  August,  1708,  Captain  Jermy  re- 
turned from  France  on  parole  and  was  tried  by 
court-martial  for  the  loss  of  his  ship.  The  fol- 
lowing are  the  minutes  of  the  trial  from  docu- 
ments in  the  Public  Record  Office  :  — 

"At  a  court-martial  held  on  board  her  Maj- 
esty's ship  the  Royal  Anne  at  Spithead.  on 
Thursday,  23  Sep.  1708;  Present:  The  Hon. 
Sir  George  Byng,  Knight,  Admiral  of  the  Blue 
Squadron  of  her  Majesty's  fleet.  .  .  . 

"  Enquiry  was  made  by  the  Court  into  the 
occasion  of  the  loss  of  her  Majesty's  ship  the 
Nightingale,  of  which  Captain  Seth  Jermy  was 
late  commander,  which  was  taken  by  six  sail 
of  the  enemy's  galleys  off  Harwich  on  24  Aug. 
1707.  The  court  having  strictly  examined  into 
the  matter,  it  appeared  by  evidence  upon  oath 
that  the  Nightingale  was  for  a  considerable  time 
engaged  with  a  much  superior  force  of  the 
enemy,  and  did  make  so  good  a  defence  as 
thereby  to  give  an  opportunity  to  all  the  ships 
under  his  convoy  to  make  their  escape  ;  and  it 


322  Miscellanies. 

is  the  opinion  of  the  court  that  he  has  not  been 
anyway  wanting  in  his  duty  on  that  occasion  ; 
and  therefore  the  Court  does  acquit  the  said 
Captain  Jermy  and  the  other  officers  as  to  the 
loss  of  Her  Majesty's  said  ship  Nightingale." 

Beyond  the  fact  that  he  was  exchanged  against 
a  French  prisoner  a  little  later,  served  again, 
was  superannuated,  and  died  in  1724,  nothing 
further  seems  to  be  known  of  Captain  Jermy. 
But  of  the  captain  who  succeeded  him  on  the 
Nightingale  when  that  ship  passed  by  capture 
into  French  hands  —  the  infamous  renegade 
whom  Marteilhe  calls  " Smith.  — "  Pro- 
fessor Laughton  supplies  data  which,  since  they 
are  included  only  in  one  very  limited  edition  of 
the  "  Memoirs,"  may  here  be  briefly  set  down. 
After  chequered  experiences  in  the  service 
of  her  Majesty  Queen  Anne,  including  a  court- 
martial  for  irregularities  while  commanding  the 
Bonetta  sloop,  Thomas  Smith,  being  then,  ac- 
cording to  his  own  account,  a  prisoner  at  Dun- 
kirk, yielded  to  solicitations  made  to  him,  and 
entered  the  service  of  the  King  of  France.  In 
November,  1707,  he  was  made  commander  of 
the  captured  Nightingale.  In  the  December 
following,  being  in  company  with  another  Dun- 
kirk privateer,  the  Squirrel,  he  was  chased  and 
taken  by  the  English  man-of-war  Ludlow  Castle, 


Marteilhe's  "  Memoirs."  323 

Captain  Haddock.  Smith  was  brought  to  Lon- 
don, tried  for  high  treason  at  the  Old  Bailey 
(2nd  June,  1708),  and  found  guilty.  "On 
i8th  June  he  was  put  on  a  hurdle  and  conveyed 
to  the  place  of  execution.  .  .  .  Being  dead  he 
was  cut  down,  his  body  opened  and  his  heart 
shown  to  the  people,  and  afterwards  burnt  with 
his  bowels,  and  his  body  quartered."  And  thus 
Marteilhe,  when  he  came  to  London  in  1713  to 
thank  Queen  Anne  for  her  part  in  his  release, 
may  well,  as  he  avers,  have  seen  Smith's  mangled 
remains  "  exposed  on  Gibbets  along  the  Banks 
of  the  Thames." 

Marteilhe's  story,  it  may  be  gathered,  differs 
in  some  respects  from  the  official  account  dis- 
interred from  the  Public  Records.  But  the 
discrepancies  are  readily  explained  by  the  fact 
that  much  which  he  related  must  have  been 
acquired  at  second  hand.  Speaking  from  his 
personal  experience,  he  is  accurate  enough. 
What  is  known  of  him  and  his  book,  beyond 
the  date  at  which  it  closes,  needs  but  few  words. 
"The  author  [of  the  '  Memoirs1],"  says  Gold- 
smith in  his  Preface  of  1757,  "  is  still  alive,  and 
known  to  numbers,  not  only  in  Holland  but 
London;"  and  it  is  quite  possible  that  in  one 
or  other  of  these  places,  Goldsmith  himself  may 
have  seen  and  conversed  with  him.  An  Aver- 


3  24  Miscellanies. 

tissement  des  Libraires  prefixed  to  the  Rotterdam 
edition,  but  not  reproduced  by  Goldsmith  or 
M.  Paumier,  is  equally  confirmatory  of  the 
authenticity  of  the  book:  "  Des  Personnes  de 
caractere,  6-  dignes  de  toute  crdance,  nous  ont 
assures,  que  cet  Outrage  a  ete  ve'ritablement  com- 
post par  un  de  ces  Proiestans,  condamne's  aux 
Galeres  de  France  pour  cause  de  Religion,  &>  qui 
enfurent  delivre's  par  r intercession  de  la  Reine 
ANNE  d'Angleterre  peu  apres  la  paix  d'Utrecht. 
Les  mSmes  Personnes  nous  ont  dit,  qu'elles  ont  eu 
des  liaisons  personnelles  avec  lAuleur  ;  qu'elles  ne 
doutent  pas  de  sa  bonne  foi  6*  de  sa  probitd ;  6- 
quelles  sont  persuaddes,  qu'autant  que  sa  me'moire 
a  pu  lui  rappeller  Us  fails,  cette  Relation  est  ex- 
acted Opposite  the  word  "  creance,"  in  the 
British  Museum  copy,  is  written  in  an  old  hand, 
"  Mrs.  Dumont  &  De  Superville."  As  Daniel 
de  Superville  Senior  was  dead  in  1757,  the  De 
Superville  here  mentioned  was  no  doubt  his  son 
of  the  same  Christian  name, — a  doctor,  who, 
as  above  suggested,  was  probably  the  editor  of 
Marteilhe's  manuscripts.  After  this  come  nat- 
urally the  details  given,  from  Coquerel  and  else- 
where, in  M.  Paumier's  second  Preface,  and 
already  referred  to.  Marteilhe,  we  learn,  did 
not  reside  permanently  in  the  Netherlands  — 
"  that  Land  of  Liberty  and  Happiness,"  as 


Marteilhes  "Memoirs."  32} 

Goldsmith  renders"  Ces  heur eases  Provinces''' 
—  but  for  some  time  was  in  business  in  London. 
He  died  at  Cuylenberg,  in  Guelderland,  on  the 
4th  November,  1777,  at  the  age  of  ninety-three. 
Little  is  known  about  his  family ;  but  it  is 
believed  that  he  had  a  daughter  who  was  mar- 
ried at  Amsterdam  to  an  English  naval  officer 
of  distinction,  Vice-Admiral  Douglas. 


GENERAL  INDEX. 


GENERAL    INDEX. 


ABBAYE,  the  Prison  of  the,  40. 
Abbey,  Edwin  A.,  166. 
Abel,  41,  42. 
Abington,    Mrs.     Fanny,     104, 

3°4- 

Absolon,  177. 

Achilles,  Gay's,  270. 

Ackermann,  174. 

Adam  and  Eve  Gallery,  the, 
192. 

Adams,  Parson,  79. 

Addington  ministry,  the,  149. 

Addison,  Joseph,  Goldsmith's 
admiration  for  and  imitation 
of,  12,  15  ;  Letter  from  Italy 
to  Lord  Halifax,  15  ;  57,  58, 
60,  61,  76,  77,81,  82,84,  158, 
245  ;  Cato,  256  ;  286. 

Addison,  Life  of,  Miss  Aiken's, 

57- 
Admiralty   buildings,    the   new, 

234- 
Agas,    Ralph,    221,    222,    231, 

277. 
Agttecheek,  Sir  Andrew,  Docld 

as,  105. 
Aiken,  Miss,  Life  of  Addison, 

57- 
Aikin,  Dr.  John,  313,  314. 


Aitken,  George  A.,  Life  of 
Richard  Steele,  57-^6;  239. 

Aix,  259,  260. 

Albano,  154. 

Albany,  the,  53. 

Albemarle,  Duke  of,  186,  187. 

Albemarle  Street,  54. 

Albinus,  91. 

Alembert,  D',  55. 

Alexander  Le  Imaginator,  223. 

Alhambra,  the,  275,  276. 

Albambra  Company,  the,  -502. 

Alkrington,  293. 

Allen's,  of  Prior  Park,  102,  10 ; 

Alhvorthy,  Fielding's,  102. 

"  Almack's,"  205,  210,  212. 

Almanac  Gencalogique,  the, 
179. 

Alvanley,  Lord,  204. 

Amelia,  Fielding's,  115. 

America,  7. 

Amesbury,  37,  38,  268,  269. 

Amiens,  the  Peace  of,  149. 

Amorevoli,  289. 

Amsterdam,  308,  325. 

Anacreon,  157. 

Analysis  of  the  Gaelic  Lan- 
guage, an,  114. 

Anatomy  of  the  Horse,  Stubbs', 
42. 

Anderson,  Alexander,  173. 


330 


General  Index. 


Anderson,  Mr.  John  P.,  138. 
Andromaque,    Duchesnois     in, 

157. 
Anecdotes   of  the  late   Samuel 

Johnson,  LL.  D.,  115. 
Anelay,  177. 
Angelica,  304. 

Angelique,  Mile.  Mars  as,  159. 
Angelo,      Dominico,       episode 

with  Mrs.  Woffington,  33,  34; 

a  "  master  of  equitation,"  34; 

his  school  in   Soho,  35;   his 

marriage,  35,  36;  his  son,  36; 

visits   to    Eton,    37;   41,    42; 

his  visitors,  41-43;  45  ;  death 

of,  46;  his  Ecole  des  Arntes, 

55- 

Angelo,  Henry,  Reminiscences 
of,  33-56;  his  birth,  36;  in 
tke  Navy,  36;  at  Eton,  36;  a 
visit  to  Amesbury,  37;  in 
Paris,  38,  39;  an  expert 
swordsman,  39,  46 ;  returns 
to  London,  40 ;  his  visitors. 
41-43 ;  early  experiences  of, 
44-46;  intimacy  with  Row- 
landson,  47-48;  other  asso- 
ciates, 49 ;  an  excellent 
amateur  actor,  49;  his  dra- 
matic essays,  50;  the  "Pic- 
Nic  Society,"  51;  anecdotes, 
52 ;  Byron  his  pupil,  53  ;  his 
"  graceful  ease  "  in  eluding 
dates,  54 ;  My  Own  Boast- 
ings, 54;  Angelas  Pic-Nic, 

55- 

Angelo's,  107. 
Angelas  Pic-Nic,  55. 
Animated  Nature,  249. 
Anne,  Queen,  70,  79,  186,  237; 


History  of  the  Reign  of,  241; 

254,  281,  286,322,  323,  324. 
Anspach,  the  Margravine  of,  51. 
Anstey,  Christopher,  19. 
Appius  and  Virginia,  248. 
Apollo  Belvedere,  the,  153. 
Apology  for  Himself  and  his 

Writings,  Steele's,  79. 
Arabian     Nights,      Forster's, 

148. 

Arachnc,  the  Story  of,  247. 
Arawintti,  Gay's,  250. 
Arber,  Mr.,  245. 
Arblay,  Madame  D',  134,  148, 

296,  304. 
Arbuthnot,  252,  254,  255,  259, 

262,  267,  268,  270. 
Archer,  Lady,  51. 
Argns,  the,  160. 
Argyll  tomb,  the,  38. 
Aristotle,  254. 
Arlington,  Lord,  196. 
Arnold,  Matthew,  320. 
Assassination  Plot,  the,  63. 
Astley,  35. 
As  to  my  Hermit,  Goldsmith's, 

17,  26,  37- 

Atfrauumt,  the,  256. 
Athenaeum  Club,  the,  no. 
Augusta,  Anna,  249.  ; 

Augusta,  Princess,  290. 
Austen,  Jane,  56,  108. 
Australia,  134. 
Axminster,  256. 
Aylesbury  family,  the,  291. 

B. 

BACH,  John  Christian,  41. 
Bach,  John  Sebastian,  41. 


General  Index. 


"  Bach  Mews,"  231. 

Bagshot  Heath,  256. 

Bajazet,  157. 

Baker,  George,  the  print-col- 
lector, 147. 

Baldwin,  119. 

Ballad  on  a  Wedding,  Suck- 
ling's, 229. 

Bailer,  Rev.  Joseph,  241,  242. 

Bailer,  Mrs.,  270. 

Balliol,  the  Master  of,  87. 

Bank  of  England,  the,  268. 

Bannister,  John,  49. 

Bannister's  Budget,  49. 

Banqueting-House,  the  old,  183, 
184,  185,  186,  188,  189,  193, 
196,  197,  198,  199,  200,  201, 

202. 

Barbados,  69,  70,  74,  75. 
Barbier,  the,  158. 
Baretti,  135. 
Barillon,  156. 

Barnaby  Rudge,  Dickens's,  291. 
Barnard,  Frederick,  166. 
Barnes,  Joshua,  286. 
Barnes  Terrace,  157. 
Barnstaple,  239,  240,  249. 
Barons,  158. 

Barrington,  George,  the    pick- 
pocket, 95. 
Barry,  296. 

Barrymore,  the  Earl  of,  50. 
Earth,    Dr.  Christian    Gottlob, 

3°9- 

Bartholo,  Desessarts  as,  158. 
Bartolozzi,    the    engraver,     42, 

46. 

Barton,  Catherine,  297,  298. 
JJasire,  169. 
Bastille,  the,  151, 


Bate,  Parson,    T/ic  Blackamoor 

•washed  white,  44. 
Batelier,  279. 

Bath,  55,  72,  90,  204,  268. 
Bathos,  the,  301. 
Battle  of  La  Hague,  296. 
Battle  of  the  Boyne,  West's,  42. 
Baxter,  Mr.  Timothy,  168. 
Bear  Street,  294. 
Beaufort  Buildings,  47. 
Beaumarchais,  109. 
Beaupre',  158. 

Beau-Tibbs-abovc-Stairs,  25. 
Beauties    of    English     Poesy, 

Goldsmith's,  15,  20. 
Beaux'  Stratagem,  the,  22,  104. 
Becky  Sharp,  44. 
Bedford,  the  Duke  of,  92. 
Bee,  The,   periodical  started  by 

Goldsmith  (1759),  22,26. 
Beer  Buttery,  the,  195. 
Beggar's  Opera,  Gay's,  264-268, 

272. 
Bell,  Messrs.  George,  and  Sons, 

132. 

Bellenden,  Mary,  287,  288. 
Beman  and  Son,  Messrs.,  306. 
B6ranger,  150. 
Bergerac,  307,  308,  309,  310. 
Berkeley,  Lord,  51,  82,  83,  236, 

286. 

Berkeley  letters,  the,  77. 
Berkely,  Lady,  28  v 
Berlin,  178. 

"Bermudas,"  the,  232,  233. 
Betterton,  54. 
Bewick,  Thomas,  the  engraver, 

105,  172,  173. 
Bibliotheque        Nationale       of 

France,  the,  307,  310, 


General  Index. 


Bickers,  the  Messrs.,  129. 

Bickerstaff,  Mr.  Isaac,  246. 

Bickerstaff1  s  Lucubrations,  245. 

Billingsgate,  133. 

Billy  the  Butcher,  43. 

Binns,  Mrs.,  75. 

Biography  of  Charles  /.,  Lilly's, 

224. 
Birth    of  the    Squire,    Gay's, 

273- 
Blackamoor  -wasKd  White,  the, 

44- 

Blackberry,  173. 
Black-ey'd  Susan,   Gay's,  260, 

273- 
Blackfriars  Bridge,  294. 

Blackmore,  64. 

Black  Spread-Eagle,  the,  243. 

Blake,  91. 

Blake,  William,  the  engraver, 
169,  265. 

Blenheim,  285. 

Blenheim  MSS.,  the,  62,  76. 

Blessington,  Lady,  206. 

Blind  Man's  Buff,  Raimbach's, 
144. 

Bloomsbury,  83,  231. 

Blount,  Mountjoy,  Earl  of  New- 
port, 278. 

"  Blue-skin,"  see  Blake,  91. 

Boarded  Gallery,  the,  192. 

Board  of  Trade,  the,  195. 

Boerhaave,  91. 

Boileau,  M.,  description  of,  38. 

Boileau,  Nicholas,  17,  65. 

Bolingbroke,  Lord,  141,  252, 
254. 

Bolton,  Duchess  of,  285. 

Bonaparte,  151,  152,  155,  160. 

Bond  Street,  54. 


Bonetta,  the,  sloop,  322. 

Boothby,  Miss  Hill,  133. 

Boswell,  James,  44,  no,  112, 
114;  Journal  of  a  Tour  to 
the  Hebrides,  114,  118;  115, 
116,  117,  118,  119;  Life  of 
Johnson,  120-134  ;  death  of, 
123;  135,  136,  137;  Journal 
of  a  Tour  to  Corsica,  139  ; 

304- 

Bosivclliana,  131,  137. 
Boswells,  the,  95. 
Bos-well's     Predecessors     and 

Editors,  96,  109-143. 
Boucher,  154. 
Boulogne,  204. 
Bourgueleret,  180. 
Bourne,  Vincent,  135. 
Bowling  Green,   the,   190,   197, 

201. 

Boyle,  229. 

Bradshaw,  Mrs.,  108,  262. 
Brandenburgh  House,  51. 
Brasenose  College,  123. 
Brass,  50. 

Brick  Court,  No.  2,  31. 
Brighton,  50,  149,  210. 
British  Museum,  the,  70,  76, 

231,  281,  308. 
British    Museum   Library,  the, 

203. 

Brooks's,  204. 
Broome,  247. 
Broughton,  54. 
Brown,  "  Capability,"  100. 
Brummell,  210. 
Brunswick,  the,  48. 
Brunswick,  Prince  of,  290. 
Buchard,  295. 
Buckhorse,  the  boxer,  107. 


General  Index. 


Buckingham  Court,  237. 
Buckingham,    Duke      of,    235, 

255,285. 

Buckingham,  Duchess  of,  287. 
Buckinghamshire,  Lady,  51. 
Buckley,  76. 
Bull,  Mr.  Edward,  93. 
Bull  Head  Tavern,  the,  237. 
Bunbury,  304. 
Burbage,    Richard,    the    actor, 

145. 
Burdicll,     Mr.,     Goldsmith's, 

168,  170,  173,  176,  179,  291. 
Burford's  Panorama,  276. 
Buridan,  272. 
Burke,  Edmund,  18,  19,  94,  95, 

100,  292,  299,  304,  305,  313. 
Burlington  Gardens,  268. 
Burlington,  Lord,  256,  259,  260, 

262,  295. 
Burnet,  144,  192  ;  History  of  the 

Reformation,  193  ;  284. 
Burney,  Dr.  Charles,  296,  299. 
Burney,  Edward,  148. 
Burney,  Fanny,  299. 
Burnham  Beeches,  217. 
Burton,  Dr.  Hill,  241  ;  History 

of  the  Reign  of  Queen  Anne, 

241. 

Bury  Street,  73,  75. 
Butler,  108. 
Butler,  James,  62. 
Byng,  Sir  George,  321. 
Byron,    53,    54,   98,   206,    215, 

273- 
Byron,  Lady,  98. 

C. 

CAEN,  in  Normandy,  222. 
Caermarthen,  Marquis  of,  291. 


Cedar's  Commentaries,  Clarke's, 

286. 

Caf6  Jacob,  the,  161. 
Calais,  163. 
Calais  Gate,  301. 
Caldecott.  Randolph,  182. 
Calwer,     Verlags-Verein,     the, 

3°9- 

Cambridge,  53. 
Cambridge,  Richard  Owen,  96 ; 

the  Scribleriad,  97;  293. 
Cambridge      the     Everything, 

293- 

Camisard,  308,  309,  310. 
Campbell,  Vitruvius  Britanni- 

cus,  183. 

Campbell,  Colonel  John,  288. 
Campbell,    Dr.    Thomas,    134, 

135.  136- 

Canaletto,  42,  230. 
Cannon  Row,  237. 
Canons,  276,  295. 
Canterbury,  the  Archbishop  of, 

36- 

Captives,  the,  Gay's,  263. 
Captivity,  Goldsmith's,  18. 
Carew,  224. 

Carhampton,  the  Earl  of,  219. 
Carleton  House,  234. 
Carleton's  Memoirs,  63,  133. 
Carlisle  House,  40,  43. 
Carlisle  House  Riding  School, 

the,  42. 

Carlisle  Street,  54,  107. 
Carlyle,  Thomas,  124,  127,  129, 

139- 

Carmarthen,  79. 
Caroline,  Princess,  296. 
Carracci,  the,  154. 
Carrickfcrgus,  81, 


334 


General  Index. 


Carrington,  Lord,  195. 
Carruthers,    Dr.    Robert,     128, 

129. 

Carter,  Mrs.,  163. 
Case  of  Authors  by  Profession, 

Ralph's,  22. 
Castle,  Mr.  Egerton,  54. 
Castle  Street,  303. 
Castlemaine,  Lady,  188,  201. 
Catherine    of    Braganza,     192, 

199. 

Catholic  Bill,  the,  291. 
Cato,  Addison's,  256. 
Catton,  Charles,  301. 
Catullus,  96. 
Cavallini,  Pietro,  222. 
Cave,  Edward,  240. 
Cecil  Court,  145. 
Censorium,  the,  80. 
Centlivre,  Mrs.,  67,  237. 
Cevennes,  308. 
Chabannes,  Jacques  de,  Seigneur 

de  la  Palice,   hero  of  Pavia, 

14. 

Chalmers,  Alexander,  76,  123. 
Chaloner,  223. 
Chamfort,  206. 
Champs-E'lys6es,  the,  151. 
Chandos,  the  Duke  of,  260. 
CJiapeau  de  Brigand,  Uwins's, 

172. 

Chapel,  74. 
Chapter     of    Accidents,     Miss 

Lee's,  104. 
Charing   Cross.  186,    188,    220, 

221,  224,  225,  229,  230,  231, 
233,  236,  277,  295. 

Charing    Cross,  the,   220,  221, 

222,  223,  224,  225,  229,  230, 


Charing  Cross  Road,  303. 
Charles,  209;  Smith  as,  105. 
Charles    I.,  184,  186,  196,  220, 

224,  225,  226,  227,  234,  235, 

287,  295. 
Charles  II.,  187,  193,  194,  199, 

200,  225,  227,  279. 
Charles  VI.,  Emperor,  282. 
Charles  X.,  229. 
Charles,  Earl  of  Halifax,  297. 
Charles  Street,  148,  292. 
Charlotte,   Princess    of    Wales, 

171. 

Charlotte,  Queen,  99,  293. 
Charmouth,  257. 
Charterhouse,  the,  60,  80. 
Chateaubriand,  Cymodocee,  216. 
Chatham,  Lord,  100,  106. 
Chaucer,  Geoffrey,  37,  221. 
Chaumette,  157. 
Cheere,  295. 

Chelsea  Hospital,  the,  94. 
Cheltenham,  204. 
Cheselden,  the  anatomist,  89. 
Chesterfield,  Lord,  90,  106,  136, 

287. 
Chetwood,  History  of  the  Stage, 

5_7- 

Chichester,  the  King  of ,  193. 
Chiffinch,  192. 
Chiswick,  36,  262,  301. 
Chiswick  Press,  the,  124. 
Chocolate  House,  74. 
Chodowiecki,  Daniel,  178,  179. 
Christ  Church,  Oxford,  61. 
Christian  Hero,  the,  61,  65. 
Christie's,  142. 
Christmas,  Gerard,  228. 
Chudleigh,  Miss,  288. 
Churchill,  Charles,  the  satire  of, 


General  Index. 


335 


12;  91;    The    Ghost,    91;  99, 

1 06;  the  K os  dad,  106. 
Gibber,  Colley,  237,  265. 
Gibber,  Theophilus,  79 ;  Lives  of 

the  Poets,  133.' 
Cipriani,  42,  46,  199. 
Citizen,  Murphy's,  159. 
Citizen     of    the     World,   The, 

Goldsmith's,  26.  318. 
City  Shower,  Swift's,  213,  242, 

257- 

Clairon,  Mademoiselle,  22. 
Clandestine  Marriage,  Garrick 

and  Colman's,  23. 
Clare,  Lord,  18. 
Clarendon,  the  Earl  of,  253. 
Clarendon  Press,  the,  138. 
Clarissa  series,  169. 
Clarke,  Samuel,  286. 
Clennell,  Luke,  173. 
Cleveland,  the  Duchess  of,  187, 

194. 
Clive,  Mrs.  Catherine,  101,  103, 

104. 

Cliveden,  103,  290. 
"Club,  the,"  117. 
Coan,  the  Norfolk  dwarf,  106, 

107. 

Cock  and  Fox,  Chaucer's,  37. 
Cock  Lane  Ghost,  227,  229. 
Cockpit,  the  old,  74,  186,  197. 
Coffee  House,  74. 
Cohen,  1 80. 
Colbert,    Charles,    Marquis    do 

Croissy,  200,  276,  279. 
Coldstream  Guards,  the,  62,  63. 
Cole,  Mrs.,  49. 
College  of  Physicians,  233. 
College  of  Surgeons,  the,  303. 
Collier,  65  ;  Sliort   View  of  the 


Immorality  and  Profaneness 

of  the  English  Stage,  66. 
Collins,  B.,  167. 
Collins,  Mortimer,  51. 
Collins,     William,    Goldsmith's 

appreciation  of  the  work  of, 

12. 
Colman,  23,  28,  87  ;  Iron  Chest, 

146. 

Colman  and  Thornton,  313. 
Colnbrook,  50. 
Combe,  174. 
Comedie  Lyrique,    Poinsinet's, 

160. 
Communion    of    St.     Jerome, 

Domenichino's,   154. 
Company  of  Undertakers,  89. 
Camus,  50. 

Concannon,  Mrs.,  51. 
Conduitt,  John,  298. 
Conduitt,     Mrs.,     see     Barton, 

Catherine. 

Confectionary,  the,  195. 
Confederacy,  Vanbrugh's,  50. 
Congreve,  William,  22,  63,  257, 

266,  289. 
Connoisseur,        Colman       and 

Thornton's,  313. 
Conscious  Lovers,  Steele's,  79. 
Constable,  144. 

Constant  Couple,  Farquhar's,  57. 
Consultation  of  Physicians,  89. 
Contarine,  Jane,  Goldsmith's 

verses  for,  10. 
Contemplation     upon      Death, 

Gay's,  250. 
Cook,  293. 

Cook,  a  criminal,  225. 
Cook,  Henry,  the  painter.  40, 
Cook,  William,  in,  ijz, 


General  Index. 


Cooke,  Tales  of  the  Genii,  148  ; 

170. 

Cooke,  Captain  Henry,  187. 
Cooper,  90. 

Copperfield,  David,  165. 
Coquecigrues,  30. 
Coquerel,  M.  A.,  Fils,  307,  311, 

3I2»  324- 

Coram,  Captain,  301. 
Corbould,  George,  175. 
Corbould,  R.,  148, 170,  171, 175. 
Corfe,  in  Dorsetshire,  222. 
Cork,  7. 

Cornaro  family,  Titian's,  229. 
Cornelys,    Mrs.    Theresa,    40 ; 

her  concerts,  41  ;  107, 
Cornhill,  the,  138. 
Coromandel,  10. 
Correggio,     Marriage    of    St. 

Catherine,  154. 
Corsica,  King  of,  91. 
Costigans,  the,  165. 
Council  office,  the,  189. 
Cousens,  144. 
Covent  Garden,  23,  28,  45,  114, 

134,  221,  238,  301,  303. 
Coverley,  Sir  Roger  de,  187. 
Cow  Lane,  280. 
Cowper,  William,  13  ;  pioneer  of 

the  new  school,  13  ;  84. 
Cozens,  Alexander,  46. 
Grace  collection,  the,  281. 
Cradock,  17,  20. 
Craggs,  260. 

Craig,  William  Marshall,  171. 
Creed,  Mr.,  200. 
Ciemona,  283. 

"  C'ribbee  Islands,"  232,  233. 
Cries  of  London  ,52. 
Crisis,  the,  Steele's,  78,  79. 


Critic,  the,  97,  106. 

Croaker,  Shuter  as,  24 ;  25,  26. 

Croaker,  Ally,  18,  19. 

Croaker,  Mrs.,  25. 

Crockford     'House,     Luttrell's, 

204,  217. 
Crockford's,  204. 
Croissy,  Marquis  de,  200,  279. 
Croker,  John  Wilson,  109,  124, 

126,  127,  130,   131,  132,   133, 

137,  139,  Hi>  I43>  299- 
Cromwell,  Henry,  246,  247,  256. 
Cromwell,  Oliver,  199,  224,  236. 
Cross,  Mr.,  232. 
Crosse,  Mrs.  Andrew,  219. 
Cross  Readings,  96. 
Cruikshank,    George,    55,   166, 

176,  182. 

Cruikshank,  Robert,  88. 
Crundale,  Richard  de,  222. 
Cumberland,  Duke  of,  135,  197, 

289. 
Cumberland,  Richard,  West  In* 

dian,  27 ;  31,  96,  97,  126,  134. 
Cunningham,    Peter,    198,    225, 

238,  278,  295. 
Curll,  Edmund,  227. 
Cutts,  Lord,  62, 63,  64. 
Cuylenberg,  325. 
Cymodoc'ee,       Chateaubriand's, 

216. 
Czar,  the,  291. 

D. 

Daily  Graphic,  the,  316. 
D'Alembcrt,  see  Alembert,  D '. 
Dalrymple,  Sir  David,  137. 
Danckers,  200. 

D'Arblay,  Madame,  see  Arblay, 
Madame  D '. 


General  Index. 


337 


Das  Kind  der  Licbe,  Kotzebue, 

108. 
David,    Jacques     Louis,     154; 

The  Sabines,  154;  155. 
David,  Madame,  155. 
Davies,  Thomas,  114. 
Davy,  Lady,  205. 
Dean    and    Murday,    Messrs., 

171. 

Dean  Street,  41. 
Death  of  General   Wolfe,    296. 
Death    on     the     Pale     Horse, 

West's,  155. 

Debates   in  Parliaments,  John- 
son's, 143. 
Delaval,  Lord,  40. 
Dennis,  the  critic.  81,  248,  259. 
D'Entraigues,   see    Entraigues, 

d'. 

D'E"on,  see  E'en,  D'. 
Deptford,  291. 
Derby,  Lord,  104. 
Desborough,  Captain,  282. 
Desdemona,  224. 
Deserted  Village,  Goldsmith's, 

9,  15,  17,  18,  19,  27,  32. 
Desessarts,  158. 
Desforges,   M.,    Tom  Jones  h 

Londres,  159. 
Desnoyers,  the  dancing  master, 

288. 
Destouches,       Nericault,       La 

Fausse  Agnls,  159. 
Devil  Tavern,  the,  244. 
Devone,  Monsieur,  225. 
Devonshire,  142,  256. 
Devonshire,  the  Duke  of,  35. 
Dial,  the,  226. 
Diary  of  a  Tour  in  Wales,  129, 

132. 


Dibdin,  Charles,  the  song-writer, 

147,  295. 
Dick,  50. 

Dickens,  Charles,  166,  291. 
"  Dickey,  little,"  Addison's,  158. 
Dicky,  57. 
Diderot,  55. 
Dieppe,  149,  150. 
Dilly,  Charles,  120. 
Dilly,    Edward,   312,   313,   314, 

3i5- 

Diane,  260. 

Distressed  Mother,  the,  Kem- 
ble's,  159. 

Doble,  286. 

Dr.  Johnson  ;  His  Friends  and 
His  Critics,  Hill's,  136.  138. 

Doctor  Syntax,  Combe's,  174. 

Dodd,  the  actor,  105. 

Dodd,  Daniel,  the  miniaturist, 
167,  168. 

Dodd,  Dr.,  execution  of,   45. 

Dodd's  Chapel,  Dr.,  135. 

Dodington,  Bubb,  288. 

Dodsley's  Freedom  and  Sympa- 
thy, 16. 

Domenichino,  Comimtnion  of 
St.  Jerome,  153. 

Dominicetti,  the  Italian  quack, 

37- 

Donaldson,  Mr.,  107. 
Don    Quixote,    Smirke's,    165  ; 

Tony  Johannot's,   165 ;   Gus- 

tave  Dora's,  165. 
Dorchester,  257. 
Dorchester,  Countess  of,  187. 
Dordogne,  307. 
Dore1,  Gustave,  165. 
Dorset,  237. 
Dorset  Place,  222,  233. 


22 


338 


General  Index. 


Double  Dealer,  the,  101. 

Double  Transformation,  The, 
Goldsmith's,  13 ;  Prior  the 
model  for,  13. 

Douglas,  Charles,  240. 

Douglas,  Home's,  313. 

Douglas,  Vice-Admiral,  325. 

Dover,  163. 

Dover,  the  Duke  of,  240. 

Dragon,  the,  man-of-war,  36. 

Drake,  76. 

Drayton,  Michael,  278. 

Dress,  Gay  on,  250. 

Dromore,  Bishop  of,  229. 

Drummer,  the,  Addison's,  58. 

Drummond's  Bank,  237. 

Drury  Lane,  23,  28,  42,  44,  67. 

Drury  Lane  Theatre,  So,  97, 98, 
250,  255,  261. 

Dryden,  John,  Goldsmith's  ad- 
miration for  the  work  of,  12; 
Quack  Maurus,  64  ;  142,  143. 

Dublin,  7,  9,  60,  270,  282. 

Dublin  street-singers,  Gold- 
smith's ballads  for,  9. 

Duchesnois,  Mile.,  156,  158. 

Dugazon,  158. 

Duill,  Mrs.,  105. 

Du  Maurier,  166. 

Dumont,  Mrs.,  324. 

Duncannon  Street,  231. 

Dunciad,  Griffith's,  312,  313, 
316,  318. 

Dunciad,  Pope's,  109. 

Dunkirk,  78,  322. 

Duperrier,  Francois,  194. 

Dupont,  Gainsborough,  144. 

Dutch  school,  the,  153. 

Dyer,  117. 

Pyers,  the,  §Q, 


E. 

EATON  SQUARE,  107. 

Eclogues,  Gay's,  273. 

Ecole    des    Armes,     the    elder 

Angelo's,  55. 
Ecolcs     de    Notre     Dame    de 

France,  294. 
Edgeware,  295. 
Edgware,  27. 
Edinburgh,  the,  57. 
Edward  VI.,  192. 
Ed-win    and  Angelina,    Gold- 
smith's, 17. 
Egerton,  T.,  56. 
Eginton,  172. 
Egleton,  Mrs.,  265. 
Eglise  Reformec,  f,  310. 
Egmont's  MSS.,  Lord,  77. 
Eighteenth   Century  Vignettes, 

Dobson's   First   Series,   269 ; 

Second    Series,    233 ;    Third 

Series,  237,  288,  293. 
Eleanor,  Queen,  220,  221,  222. 
Election    Entertainment,     the, 

238. 

Election  of  Gotham,  the,  67. 
Elegy,  Gray's,  12  ;  Goldsmith's 

criticism  of,  12. 
Elegy  on  the  Death  of  a  Mad 

Dog,  Goldsmith's,  14,  15,  181, 

182. 

Elizabeth  of  Bohemia,  279. 
Elizabeth,  Queen,  150,  185,  221. 
Elliot's  Light  Horse,  34. 
Ellis,  Dr.  Welbore,  61. 
Elphinston,  Mr.,  114. 
Ehvin,  Mr.,  250. 
Embankment,  the,  191, 
Empire,  the,  276, 


General  Index. 


139 


Enfield  Old  Park,  315. 
England,  22,  178. 
English  Garner,  245. 
English  Historical  Review,  the, 

320. 

English     Humourists,    Thack- 
eray's, 239. 
English  Illustrated  Magazine, 

182. 

Englishman,  the,  78. 
Entraigues,  Count  d',  157. 
Entraigues,  Countess  d',  157. 
Epigrammatical  Petition, 

Gay's,  253. 

Fpistle  to  a  Lady,  Gay's,  255. 
Epistle    to    Bernard    Lintott, 

Gay's,  243,  247. 
Epistle  to   Churchill,   Lloyd's, 

227. 
Eon,  the  Chevalier  D',  41,  55, 

107. 

Erse  Grammar,  Shaw's,  114. 
Erskine,  Andrew,  139. 
Es crime,  55. 
Escurial,  the,  184. 
Essay  on  Criticism,  247. 
Essay  on  the  Life,  Character, 
and  Writings  of  Dr.  Samuel 
Johnson,  Toilers',  118. 
Essex,  198. 

Essex,  Countess  of,  261. 
Eton,  36,  46,  107. 
Eugene,  Prince,  276,  282,  283, 

284,  285,  286. 
European  Magazine,  the,  in, 

112. 

Evelina,  299. 

Evelyn,  John,  186,  187,  188, 
189 ;  his  Diary,  190,  191, 
192>I93>  194;  20°.  202»  225. 


228,  229,  236,  279,  280,  281, 

291. 

Exeter,  256,  259,  260. 
Exeter  Change,  232,  270. 

F. 

Fables,  Gay's,  263,  273. 

Fagan,  Mr.  Louis,  295. 

Fair  Penitent,  Rowe's,  102. 

Faithorne's  map,  277. 

False  Delicacy,  Hugh  Kelly's, 
24. 

Palstaff,  Sir  John,  Stephen 
Kemble's,  105  ;  Kenny  Mea- 
dows', 165 ;  Sir  John  Gil- 
bert's, 165 ;  Edwin  A. 
Abbey's,  166. 

Fan,  the,  Gay's,  250,  273. 

Farintosh,  Lord,  50. 

Faro's  Daughters,  51. 

Farquhar,  Constant  Couple,  57. 

Farquhars,  the,  31. 

Farren,  Miss,  104. 

Fauconberg,  Lady,  289. 

Faulkland,  29. 

Faussans,  the,  289. 

Fawcett,  88. 

Female  Faction,  the,  267. 

Female  Phaeton,  Prior's,  240. 

Fenton,  247,  261. 

Fenton,  Lavinia,  265. 

Ferdinand,  Prince  of  Bruns- 
wick, 290. 

Yielding,  Henry,  his  burlesque 
of  Richardson's  Pamela,  20  ; 
Joseph  Andrews,  20, 168,  169, 
251 ;  Pasquin,  23  ;  30,  58,  71, 
So,  82,  89,  102,  115;  Journal 
of  a  Voyage  to  Lisbon,  142; 
273,  301. 


340 


General  Index. 


Fife  House,  195. 

Finden,  William,  the  engraver, 

144,  175,  180. 
Fisher,    Edward,    the    mezzo- 

tinter,  144,  300. 
Fisher,  John,  185. 
Fisher's  Plan,  185,  186,  190, 

196. 

Fish-Pool,  the,  So. 
Fitzgerald,  Mr.  Percy,  129,  130, 

131,  138,  143- 

Fitzherbert,  Mrs.,  50. 

Five  Fields,  the,  107. 

Fives  Court,  the,  210. 

Flanders,  282. 

Flattery,  Gay  on,  250. 

Flaxman,  147,  149,  170. 

Flemish  school,  the,  153. 

Florence,  290. 

Flying-Post,  the,  64. 

Fontenoy,  the  battle  of,  289. 

Foote,  Samuel,  The  Handsome 
Housemaid ;  or,  Piety  in  Pat- 
tens, 29;  39,  40,  41;  Taste, 
40,  50;  Minor,  49;  The  Liar, 

49- 

Foppington,  Lord,  162,  237. 
Formats potir  la  Foi,  Coquerel's, 

3°7- 

Ford,  Mr.  Edward,  315. 

Ford,  Mr.  J.  W.,  315. 

Ford,  Major,  69. 

Ford,  Parson,  135. 

Ford,  Sir  Richard,  201. 

Foreign  Offices,  the,  183. 

Fores,  of  Piccadilly,  48. 

Forster,  Biography  of  Gold- 
smith, 8  •  Arabian  Nights, 

!4S;  3i4,3i5>  3!6,  3i7- 
"  Forster  Library,"  the,  241. 


Fortescue,  242. 

Fortescue,  Mrs.,  270. 

Forth,  the,  321. 

Forton,  48. 

Foster,  Sermons,  136. 

Foundling,  the,  135. 

Four    Stages  of   Cruelty,  the, 

Hogarth's,  46. 
Fox,  Charles,  95,   156;  History 

of  the   Revolution    of  1688, 

156. 

Fragonard,  154. 
France,  180,  229. 
Franklin,  Benjamin,  299,  302. 
Frederick,     Prince     of    Wales, 

276,  288,  290. 
Frederick  the  Great.  301. 
Frederika,  179. 
Freedom,  Dodsley's,  16. 
Freemasons'  Tavern,  the,  88. 
French    Revolution,    the,     147, 

149,  151. 
Frere,  27^. 
Friar  Pine,  the,  301. 
"  Ftibs,"  the  Royal  yacht,  282. 
Fnitc  dn  Camisard,  la,  Vidal's, 

310. 

Funeral,  the,  Steele's,  57,  65. 
Fuseli,  99. 

G. 

GAINSBOROUGH,  42,  144. 

Gallas,  Count,  286. 

Gamps,  the,  765. 

Gardel,  Mme.,  158. 

Garrick,  Carrington,  36. 

Garrick,  David,  18,  23,  24,  28, 
31,  36,  40;  his  farewell  to  the 
stage,  45,  49;  101,  105,  107, 


General  Index. 


135  ;  Ode  on  Mr.  Pel/tarn, 
141;  146,  302,  304. 

Garrick,  Mrs.,  37,  45. 

Garrick,  Nathan,  36. 

Garrick  and  Colman's  Clandes- 
tine Marriage,  23;  Lord 
Ogleby,  23. 

Gascoigne,  Henry,  60. 

Gatti,  88. 

Gautier,  Theophile,  165. 

Gay,  John,  12,  19,  38,  67,  156, 
232 ;  Life  of,  239 ;  birth  of, 
239  ;  Poetical  Works,  239 ; 
education  of,  240;  his  school- 
days, 240,  241  ;  apprenticed  to 
a  silk  mercer,  241  ;  Wine,  243; 
Epistle  to  Bernard  Lintott, 
243;  the  Present  State  of 
Wit,  245,  246;  his  appoint- 
ment to  Monmouth,  248 ; 
Rural  Sports,  249  ;  The  Wife 
of  Bath,  250 ;  on  Flattery 
and  Dress,  250;  the  Fan, 
250;  A  Contemplation  upon 
Death,  250  ;  Panthea,  250  ; 
Araminta,  250  ;  The  Shep- 
herd'1 s  Week,  250 ;  his  ap- 
pointment to  Hanover,  253 ; 
his  Epigrammatical  Petition, 
'253  ;  Epistle  to  a  Lady,  255; 
What  <P  ye  call  it,  255  ;  a 
Journey  to  Exeter,  256 ; 
Trivia,  257,  258;  Three 
Hours  before  Marriage,  259; 
his  ballads,  260 ;  his  financial 
ventures,  260,  261 ;  his 
friendship  for  the  Queens- 
kerrys,  261,  262;  the  Captives, 
263  ;  the  Fables,  263  ;  his 
royal  appointment,  264 ;  Beg- 


gar's Opera,  264 ;  the  play 
prohibited,  266;  jumps  into 
prominence,  267  ;  cared  for 
by  his  friends,  268,  269 ; 
Achilles,  270 ;  death  of,  270  ; 
characteristics  of,  271  ;  his 
epitaph,  271  ;  summary  of 
his  work,  272-274  ;  288,  299. 

Gay,  Thomas,  240,  242. 

Gay,  William,  239. 

Gay's  Chair,  241. 

Gazette,  the,  70,  73. 

Gentleman's  Magazine,  the, 
in,  112.  113,  133,  297. 

George  I.,  79, 237,  258,  275,  281, 
295. 

George  II.,  16,  142,  264,  267, 
288. 

George  III.,  94,  146,  152,  155, 
230,  290. 

George  IV.,  152. 

George,  Prince  of  Denmark,  70. 

George  Augustus,  Prince  of 
Wales,  286. 

Georgian  London,  118. 

GeVard,  Baron,  155,  164. 

Gerfaut,  174. 

Germaine,  Lady  Betty,  299. 

Germany,  178. 

Gibbon,  107,  304,  308. 

Gibbons,  Grinley,  184,  227. 

Gigoux,  Jean,  180. 

Gilbert,  Sir  John,  165,  177. 

Gil  Bias,  Gigoux's,  180. 

Gillray,  51,  147,  203. 

Girodet,  155. 

Glassalt,  72. 

Gobillot,  Mile.  Reine,  174. 

God  Save  the  King,  41. 

"  Golden  Cross,"  223,  230,  231. 


342 


General  Index. 


"  Golden  Head,"  the,  300,  302. 

Goldsmith,  Henry,  10. 

Goldsmith,  Lewis,  160. 

Goldsmith,  Oliver,  story  of,   7- 
g ;  Vicar  of  Wakefield,  9,  1 7, 
21,   32;  Deserted    Village,  9, 
15,  17,  18,  19,27,  32;  late  ap- 
pearance of  his  literary  genius, 
9 ;  Poems  and  Plays,   9-32  ; 
Ballads    for    Dublin    street- 
singers,  9;     Verses   for  Jane 
Contarine,    10 ;    no    evidence 
that  he  wrote  in  his  youth,  9, 
10 ;    The    Traveller,    10,    15, 
17,    18,    19,    20,    32;  circum- 
stances responsible  for  his  lit- 
erary career,  10;  lawyer,  10; 
physician,  10  ;  clergyman,  10  ; 
dislike  of  scholastic  work,  10  ; 
return  to  it  after  a  first  trial  of 
writing,  10;  takes  up  the  pen 
again  to  escape  from  it,io  ;  his 
efforts  to  relinquish  the  pen, 
10,  ii ;  literature  claims  him 
until   death,    n  ;  wrote  little 
previous  to  his  second  period, 
ii  ;  literary   opinions    formed 
earlier,  1 1 ;  Polite   Learning 
in  Europe,  ii,  15,  22.  26;  his 
criticism    of    publishers,    n  ; 
his  views     of  poetry  in    the 
Monthly  Review,  ii;  objects 
to  blank    verse,  1 1 ;    favours 
rhyme,  1 1 ;  champion  of  char- 
acter and  humour,  12;  likes  and 
dislikes  of  his    predecessors, 
12  ;  belonged  to  the  school  of 
Addison,  Swift,  and  Prior,  12  ; 
belief  in  poetry  directed  at  the 
many,  12  ;  criticism  of  Gray' 


writings,  12 ;  his  advice  to 
Gray,  13 ;  his  opinion  of  his 
contemporaries  and  predeces- 
sors, 12  ;  his  poetic  attitude, 
IT,;  A  New  Simile,  13;  The 
Logicians  Refilled,  13  ;  The 
Double  Transformation,  13; 
his  acquaintance  with  the 
minor  French  poets,  13;  his 
translations,  13.  14  ;  Life  of 
Parncll,  15  ;  Beauties  of 
English  Poesy,  15,  20  ;  intro- 
duction of  politics  into  his 
works,  15,  16;  humanity  in 
his  poems,  16 ;  Edwin  and 
Angelina,  17;  Poems  for 
Young  Ladies,  17 ;  As  to 
Any  Hermit,  17,  26,  37  ;  criti- 
cism of,  13,  14,  15,  16,  17,  18; 
Captivity,  18  ;  Threnodia 
Aitgustalis,  1 8  ;  Retaliation, 
1 8, 19:  the  Haunch  of  Venison, 
18  ;  Letter  to  Mrs.  Bunbury, 
18 ;  Little  Comedy,  18 ;  his 
poetry,  19  ;  financial  returns, 
19,  20;  his  life  a  treadmill, 
20;  History  of  Animated 
Nature,  20 ;  in  pursuit  of 
dramatic  success,  21  ;  letters 
to  Hodson,  21  ;  The  Beaux'  ' 
Stratagem,  22  ;  the  Bee.  22, 
26 ;  the  Good-Natnr'd  Man, 
23,  24,  25,  26,  27,  29  ;  obsta- 
cles, 23,  28  ;  the  Citizen  of  the 
World,  26 ;  She  Stoops  to 
Conquer,  27,  28,  29,  30,  31  ; 
the  Grumbler,  31 ;  his  death, 
31 ;  summary  of  his  work, 
32;  his  Croaker,  52;  58,  61, 
82,  94,  96,  no,  in,  134,  168, 


General  Index. 


172,  174,  176,  177,  181,  182, 
229,  230,  249,  271,  291,  304, 
313,  3*4,  3I5,  3!6>  3*7,  3J9» 
323. 324,  325- 

"  Goldsmith  House,"  316. 

Goldsmith  Road,  316. 

Goldsmith's    Poetical     Works, 

3'3- 

Goodall,  144. 

Goodman's  Fields,  101. 

Good-Natur'dMan,  The,  Gold- 
smith's first  comedy,  21,  23, 
24,  25,  26,  27,  29. 

Gordon  rioters,  the,  146. 

Gordon  riots,  the,  46. 

Goschen,  Mr.,  272. 

Goujon,  Jean,  the  door<arver, 
150. 

Gower,  Lord,  291. 

Grafton,  Duke  of,  189. 

Grampian  Club,  the,  131. 

Granby,  the  Marquis  of,  52. 

Grand  Opera,  the,  Paris,  157. 

Grant,  Colonel  Francis,  no, 
138. 

Gray,  Thomas,  Goldsmith's  crit- 
icism and  advice  to,  13 ; 
Sketch  of  his  own  Character, 
195304. 

Great  Britain,  Public  Records 
of,  232. 

Great  Hall,  the,  193,  195. 

"Great  Mews."  231. 

Great  Queen  Street,  99. 

Great  Writers,  21. 

Grecian  Coffee  House,  the,  134. 

Greek  Anthology,  14. 

Green,  Charles,  166. 

Green,  Valentine,  the  mezzo- 
tinter,  144. 


Green-Arbour-Court,  7. 
Green  Chamber,  the,  192. 
"  Green  Mews,"  231. 
Green  Street,  294,  295. 
Greville,  204,  217. 
Griffin,  the  actor,  19,  256. 
Griffiths,    Ralph,   12,   312,  313, 

3x4i  3'5>  3*7,  3'8- 
Grignion,  the  engraver,  55. 
Gros,  155. 

Grosvenor,  Lady,  135. 
Grotius,  254. 
Grub-street,  83. 
Grumbler,    The,    Goldsmith's, 

3i- 

Guardian,  the,  77,  78,  82,  250. 
Guelderland,  325. 
Guercino,  154. 
Guerin,  155. 
Guide  de  I' Amateur  de  Livres  h 

Vignettes,  Cohen's,  180. 
Guido,  154. 
Guiscard,  186. 
Guizot,  Madame,  249. 
Gunter,  Edmund,  189. 
Gwydyr  House,  185. 
Gwynne,  the  painter,  55. 

H. 

HACKMAN,  James,  execution  of, 

45- 

Haddock,  Captain,  323. 
Hague,  the,  153,  282,  283,  306. 
Halifax,  Earl  of,  15,  246,  297, 

298. 

Hall,  John,  42,  55,  146,  147. 
Halle,  309. 

Hall  of  Antiques,  the,  154. 
Hamilton,  Anthony,  187. 


344 


General  Index. 


Hammersmith,  51. 
Hampstead,  222. 
Hampton  Court,  198,  201. 
Handsome    Housemaid,     The ; 

or,  Piety  in  Pattens,  Foote's, 

29. 

Hanmer,  Lady  Catherine,  289. 
Hanmer,  Miss,  240. 
Hanmer,  Rev.  John,  242. 
Hanover,  Court  of,  253. 
Hanoverian  succession,  the,  78. 
Hanway,  Jonas,  258. 
Harcourt,    Sir     William,     259, 

272. 
"  Hardcastle,    Ephraim  "     (W. 

H.  Pyne),  52,  230. 
Hardcastle,  Miss,  30. 
Hardcastles,  the,  30. 
Hare  and  Many  Friends,  the, 

269. 

Harley,  77,  186. 
Harrison,  168. 
Harrison,    Major- General,    224; 

225. 

Harrison,  Mrs.,  224. 
Harrow,  41,  53. 
Hartley-Row,  256. 
Hartshorne  Lane,  222. 
Harwich,  321. 
Hastings,  31. 
Hastings  trial,  the,  94. 
Hatfield  Peverell,  198. 
Hatton,  189. 

Haunch  of  Venison,  The,  Gold- 
smith's, 18. 
Hawkins,  Sir  John,  17, 116,  117, 

118,  126,  133. 
Hayman,  Frank,  49,  52. 
Haymarket,  the,  54,  234. 
Hearne,  286. 


"  Hearts,  the  Queen  of,  "  279. 

Heath,  144,  168,  171. 

Hebrides,  the,  114,  118,  119. 

Hedge  Lane,  221,  277. 

Hemings'  Row,  231. 

Hendon,  27. 

Henrietta,  Congreve's,  266. 

Henry  111.,  222. 

Henry  VIII.,  185,  197,  231. 

Henry,  Prince  of  Wales,  278. 

Hentzner,  198. 

Herbert,  Henry,  Earl  of  Pem- 
broke, 34,  55. 

Heretical  Book,  Whiston's,  286. 

Her  Majesty's  Theatre,  221. 

Hermit,  Goldsmith's,  37. 

Hero  of  Culloden,  the,  43. 

Hervart,  M.and  Mme.  de,  269. 

Hervey,  Captain  Augustus,  36. 

Hervey,  Lady,  36,  288. 

Hervey,  Lord,  265,  287,  288. 

Highgate,  222. 

Hill,  Aaron,  the  play wright,  243. 

Hill,  Dr.  George  Birkbeck,  94, 
136,  138,  139,  140,  141,  142, 

143- 

Hills,  Henry,  243. 
Hippokekoana,  Countess  of,  2^9. 
History   of  Animated  Nature, 

Goldsmith's,  20. 
History  of  Music,  Burney's,  299. 
History  of  Our  Own  Times,  316. 
History    of    the     Reformation, 

Burnet's,  193. 
History  of  the    Revolution    of 

1688,  Fox's,  156. 
History  of  the  Stage,  the,  Chet- 

wood's,  57. 
Hoadly,    Suspicious  Husband, 

135- 


General  Index. 


345 


Hockley-in-the-Hole,  289. 

Hodson,  Daniel,  21,  317. 

Hoffmann,  286. 

Hogarth,  William,  35  ;  Four 
Stages  of  Cruelty,  46 ;  89, 
149,  163,  230,  237,  238,  265, 
276,  288,  300,  301,  302,  303, 

3°4- 
Hogarth,    Mrs.    William,    276, 

302. 

Hogarth,  Mrs.  (mere),  145. 
Holbein's   Gate,  186,  193,  196, 

197. 

Holborn,  57. 
Holborn  Conduit,  226. 
Holcroft,    Thomas,     160  ;    the 

Road  to  Ruin,  161  ;   Travels 

in  France,  161  ;  296. 
Holkham,  132. 
Holland,  285.  308,  323. 
Holland,  Lady,  Life  of  Sydney 

Smith,  205. 
Holland,  Lord,  204. 
Holies  Street,  93. 
"  Holophusikon,"  Lever's,  292, 

293- 

Home,  313. 
Homer,  Barnes's,  286. 
Honeycomb,  Will.,  258. 
Honey-wood,  Powell  as,  25. 
Hook,  Theodore,  53. 
Horace,  206,  208,  209,  218,  237. 
Horace,  Maittaire's,  241. 
Horatio,  Quin  as,  102. 
Horse    Grenadier   Guards,   the, 

292. 

Horse  Guards,  the,  62. 
Horse  Guards  Avenue,  184,  195. 
Horse  Guard  Yard,  the,  187, 196. 
Houghton,  Lord,  131. 


Howard,  Henry,  Earl  of  Nort- 
hampton, 228,  229. 
Howard,  Mrs.,  255,  262,  267. 
Howard  family,  the,  40. 
Howe,  Lord,  47,  48. 
Howe,  Sophia,  288. 
Howell,  279. 
Hoyden,  Miss,  162. 
Huguenot     Galley-Slave,     the, 

3"- 

Human  Life,  Rogers',  218. 

Humber,  the,  321. 

Hummums,  the,  134. 

Humphry,  Ozias,  the  miniatur- 
ist, 99. 

Hunter,  John,  276,  302;  his 
museum  of  Comparative  and 
Pathological  Anatomy,  303. 

Hunter,  William,  303. 

Huot,  i So. 

Huth,  Mr.,  238. 

Hyde,  Catherine,  253,  261. 

Hyde,  Lady  Jane,  253,  261. 

Hyde,  Mr.,  190. 

Hyde  Park,  64. 

Hyde  Park  Corner,  295. 


I. 


lago,  Macklin  as,  101. 

Idler,  the,  112. 

Iliad.  Homer's,  231,  273. 

"  Imperial  Resident,"  the,  281, 

286. 
Imperio-Classical    School,   the, 

154. 
Importance   of   Dunkirk   Con- 

sider'd,  the,  Steele's,  78. 
Importance  of  the  " Guardian  " 

Considered,  the,  Swift's,  78. 


346 


General  Index. 


Inchbald,  Mrs.,  108. 
India  Office,  the,  183. 
Ingres,  155. 

Ireland,  62,  76,  136,  298. 
Ireland,  John,  the  Hogarth  com- 
mentator, 147. 
Irene,  101. 
Irish  Melodies,  219. 
Iron  Chest,  Colman's,  146. 
Irving,  Washington,  229. 
Isabey,  the  miniaturist,  154. 
Isleworth,  228. 
Isocrates,  13. 
Italian  opera,  the,  159. 
Italian  Opera  House,  the,  49. 
Ivy  Lane,  117. 

J- 

JACKSON,  54. 

Jacob's  Well,  50. 

Jacque,  Charles,  180. 

Jamaica,  Governor  of,  88. 

James  I.,  184,  189,  198,  234. 

James  II.,  184,  198,  278,  287. 

James,  Mrs.,  71. 

Janin,  Jules,  180. 

Jansen,  Bernard,  228. 

Jar  din  des  Plantes,  the,  153. 

Jeffery,  204. 

Jekyll,  204. 

Jenkinson,  179. 

Jeremy  Diddler,  Kenney's,  215 

Jermy,  Seth,  320,  321,  322. 

Jermyn  Street,  73. 

Jervas,  Charles,  261,  262. 

Jesse,  J.  Heneage,  198. 

Johannot,  Tony,  165,  180. 

John,  Lord  Cutts,  62. 

John,  Lord  Hervey,  265,  288. 


[ohn  of  Bologna,  226. 
Johnson,      Elizabeth,     marries 

Dommico    Angelo,    36 ;    her 

son,  36. 

Johnson,  Mrs.,  282. 
Johnson,  Samuel,  9,  16,  17,  28, 

29,  30  ;  prologue  to  The  Good 

Natur^d  Man,  24 ;  Suspirius, 

25;  58>  94,  99,  i°i>  i°9>  IIO> 
in,  112;  Memoirs  of,  114; 
Anecdotes  of,  115;  116,  117, 
1 18  ;  Essay  on  the  Life,  Char- 
acter, and  Writings  of,  118; 
Journey  to  the  Western  Is- 
lands of  Scotland,  118;  119; 
Boswell's  Life  of,  120-134; 
135;  His  Friends  and  His 
Critics,  136;  the  Spirit  of, 
137  ;  142  ;  Debates  in  Parlia- 
ment, 143;  229;  Poets,  239  j 
249,  272,  299,  304. 
Jchnsoniana,  Mrs.  Napier's, 

113?  "5,  T33- 
Johnsonian  Miscellanies,l\\\\  s, 

M3- 

Jones,  Henry,  90. 

Jones,  Inigo,  183. 

Jones,  John,  224,  225. 

Jonson,  Ben,  199,  222,  232. 

Jordaens,  199. 

Jordan,  Mrs.,  104. 

Joseph  Andrews,  Fielding's, 
20,  168,  169,  251. 

Jouaust,  181. 

Journal  des  S^avans,  the,  280. 

Journal  of  a  Tour  to  Corsica, 
Boswell's,  139. 

Journal  of  a  Tour  to  the  Heb- 
rides, Boswell's,  114, 1 18,  I2or 

121,   122,  126,    129. 


General  Index. 


347 


Journal  of  a  Voyage  to  Lisbon, 
Fielding's,  142. 

Journal  to  Stella,  76. 

Journey  to  Exeter,  Gay's,  256. 

Journey  to  the  Western  Is- 
lands of  Scotland,  Johnson's, 
118,  132,  136. 

Judgment  of  Paris,  the,  289. 

Julia,  30,  208,  209. 

Jnniits,  92. 

K. 

KAUFFMAN,  Angelica,  228. 

Kean,  Charles,  108. 

Kean,  Edmund,  54,  55. 

Kearsley,  G.,  1 1 1 . 

Keats,  John,  16. 

Keble,  William,  243. 

Keith,  Marshal,  91. 

Kelly,  64. 

Kelly,  Hugh,  False  Delicacy, 
produced  by  Garrick  at  Drury 
Lane,  24,  25  ;  27  ;  A  Word 
to  the  Wise,  27;  29,  31,  95. 

Kemblc,  Charles,  105. 

Kemble,  John,  105,  146,  157, 
159;  the  Distressed  Mother, 
159. 

Kembb,  Stephen  George,  105. 

Kenney,  Jeremy  Diddlcr,  215. 

Kensington,  296. 

Kent,  279. 

Kent,  William,  231,  260. 

Kent's  Horse  Guards,  183,  184. 

Kdroualle,  Louise  Ren6e  de, 
190. 

Kevv,  157. 

Keys,  Dr.,  35. 

King,  Dr.,  89. 


King's    Mews,    the,   220,    221, 

231,  277,  279. 
King's  Square  Court,  40. 
King  Street,  186,  197. 
King  Street  Gate,  186,  197. 
Kirk,  Mrs.,  187. 
Kit  Cat  Club,  the,  68,  70,  299. 
Kitty,  Prior's,  261,  269. 
Kneller,  71,  284. 
Knightsbridge,  107. 
Kotzebue,  108. 


Ladies  Library,  the,  80. 

"  Lady     Louisa     of     Leicester 

Square,"  the,  299. 
Lady's  Last  Stake,  the,  Huth's, 

238. 
La  Fausse  Agnts,  Destouches', 

159. 

La  Fontaine,  91,  268,  271. 
Lalauze,  M.  Adolphe,  181. 
Lallah  Rookfi,  Moore's,  218. 
Lamb,  Charles,  105,  163. 
Lambert,    George,    the     scene 

painter,  301. 
"  Lammas,"  278. 
Lammasland.  278. 
I.a  Monnoye,  14. 
La  Motte,  M.  de,  44. 
Lampson,  Mr.  Locker,  217. 
Lancret.  181. 
Landguard  Fort,  67. 
Landlady,  the,  167,  171. 
Landor,  86. 
Landseer,  144,  233. 
Lange,  Janet,  180. 
Langford's,  42. 
Languedoc,  308, 


General  Index. 


La  Palice,  Seigneur  de,  see 
Chabannes,  Jacques  de. 

Laporte,  159. 

La  Sabliere,  Mme.  de,  268. 

Lauderdale,  the  Earl  of,  190, 
218. 

Laughton,  Professor  J.  K.,  320, 
322. 

La  Vendee,  48. 

Layer,  Counsellor  Christopher, 
91. 

Lays  (Lais),  Frangois,  157. 

Lear,  Garrick  as,  135. 

Lee,  Miss,  104. 

Le  Flcix,  310. 

Leghorn,  35. 

Leicester,  Earl  of,  278,  279,  281. 

Leicester  Fields,  35,  275-305. 

Leicester  House,  276,  278,  279, 
280,  281,  285,  286,  287,  288, 
289,  290,  291,  292,  293,  294. 

Leicester  Mews,  the,  295. 

Leicester  Place,  278,  294,  295. 

Leicester  Square,  275,  276. 

Leicester  Street,  294. 

Lekains,  the,  158. 

Lenoir,  M.  Alexandre,  162. 

Lepel,  Mary,  287,  288. 

Le  Sceur,  Hubert,  226,  295. 

Letter  from  Italy  to  Lord  Hali- 
fax, Addison's,  15  ;  Gold- 
smith's The  Traveller  sug- 
gested by,  15. 

Letters  from  a  Dandy  to  a 
Doll,  216. 

Letters  to  Julia,  Luttrcll's,  203- 
219. 

Letter  to  Mrs.  Bunbury,  Gold- 
smith's, 1 8. 

Lever,  Sir  Ashton,  29?,  293. 


Lever,  Charles,  292. 
Lewes,  Sir  Watkin,  96. 
Lewis,  the  actor,  105. 
Lewis,  Mrs.  Mary,  302. 
Leypoldt    and    Holt,    Messrs., 

3"- 

Liar,  the,  Foote's,  49. 

Library  School  of  St.  Martin's, 
the,  146. 

Lichfield,  133. 

Life  of  Goldsmith,  Forster's,  8. 

Lifeof  Parnell,  Goldsmith's,  15. 

Life  of  Samuel  Johnson,  Bos- 
well's,  120-134;  the  Oxford 
edition,  123. 

Lille,  319. 

Lilly,  William,  224. 

Lincoln,  Earl  of,  262. 

Lincoln's  Inn  Fields,  98,  264. 

Linnaeus,  91. 

Linton,  173. 

Lintott,  Bernard,  243,  247,  248. 

Linwood's  Art  Needlework. 
Miss,  276,  292. 

Lion  d' Argent,  the,  163. 

Lions,  Landscer's,  233. 

Lisbon,  142. 

Lisburn,  Lord,  20. 

Lisle  Sti-cet,  278,  294. 

Listen,  146. 

Literary  Gazette,  the,  93.    ; 

Literary  Illustrations,  Nichols', 
no. 

Literary  Magazine,  the,  317. 

Litlle  Comedy,  Goldsmith's,  18. 

Little  Dickey,  57. 

Little  Newport  Street,  277. 

Little  Strawberry,  103. 

Livesay,  Richard,  the  engraver, 

702. 


General  Index. 


Lives  of  the  Poets,  Gibber's,  133. 

Liviez,  M.,  38. 

Lloyd,  Robert,  106,  227. 

Locket,  237. 

Lofty,  25. 

Logicians  Refuted,  The,  Gold- 
smith's, 13 ;  Swift  the  model 
for,  13. 

Lomsbery,  231. 

London,  7,  34,  35,  39,  40,  47, 
72,87,  109,  115,  134,  157,159. 
214,  258,  275,  285,  293,  294, 

323,  325- 

London  and  Wise,  Messrs.,  200. 
London  County   Council,    236, 

238. 

London  militia,  223. 
Longfellow,  Henry  Wadsworth, 

13- 

Long  Parliament,  the,  223. 

Long  Walk,  the,  197. 

Lord  Chamberlain,  the.  189, 196, 
266. 

Lord  Keeper's  Office,  the,  189. 

Lord  Ogleby,  Garrick  and  Col- 
man's,  23. 

Lort,  Michael,  no. 

Lothario,  102. 

Louis  XIV.,  62,  279. 

Louis  XIV.  et  la  Revocation, 
308. 

Louis  XIV.  et  le  Due  de  Bour- 
gogne,  Michelet's,  308. 

Louis  XV.,  33. 

Louisa,  Princess,  264. 

Loutherbourg,  Philip  de,  42. 

Louvre,  the,  153,  154,  156,  184. 

"  Lovers'  Vows,"  Mrs.  Inch- 
bald's,  108. 

Lowe,  Mauritius,  133. 


Lower  Park  Road,  316. 

Lucas,  Lord,  65,  144. 

Lucas's  Fusileers,  63,  67. 

Lucius ,  81. 

Luck,  Robert,  240;  Miscellany 
of  New  Poems,  240  ;  243. 

Lucy,  Mrs.  Egleton  as,  265. 

Ludlow  Castle,  the,  English 
man-of-war,  322. 

Lumpkin,  Tony,  30,  179,  293. 

Lnsignan,  Garrick  as,  135. 

Luttrell,  Colonel,  219. 

Luttrell,  Henry,  64,  108;  Let- 
ters to  Julia,  203-219;  opin- 
ions of,  205-216;  Crockford 
House,  217;  fugitive  verses, 
217;  his  lesser  pieces,  218, 219. 

Luxembourg,  the,  155. 

Lydia,  208,  209. 

Lying  Lover,  the,  Steele's,  66. 

Lyra  Elegantiarum,  217. 

M. 

MABUSE,  192. 

MacArdell,  the  mezzotinter,  144. 

Macaulay,  T.  B.,  57,  124,  127, 
13°,  '33i  290. 

MacKinnon,  General,  63. 

Mackintosh,  204. 

Macklin,  101,  102. 

Maclean,  James,  the  "gentle- 
man highwayman,"  107. 

Macmillan  and  Co.,  Messrs., 
182,  301. 

Macpherson,  114. 

Madame  Blaizc,  Goldsmith's, 
14. 

Magdalen,  61. 

Maginn,  232. 

Maiano,  John  de,  198. 


General  Index. 


Maillard,  Mile.,  157. 
Mainwaring,  Arthur,  70. 
Maittaire,  Horace,  241. 
Malone,  115,  116,  119,  121,  123, 

128,  138,  141,  277. 
Manchester,  293. 
Manley,  Mr.,  68. 
Manley,  Mrs.  De  la  Riviere,  68, 

69,  70. 
Mann,  290. 
Mansfield  Park,  Miss  Austen's, 

108. 

Mantal,  309. 
Maplesden,  Margery,  67. 
Mapp,  Mrs.  Sarah,  the  Epsom 

bone-setter,  89. 
Marengo,  152. 

Marlborough  daughters,  the,  285. 
Marlborough,   Duchess  of,    90, 

266,  268. 
Marlborough,  Duke  of,  76,   83, 

282,  284,  286. 
Mar  low,  31. 
Marriage  of  St.  Catherine,  Cor- 

reggio's,  154. 
Mars,  Mile.,  158. 
Marteilhe,    Jean,   Memoirs    of, 

306-325. 

Marvell,  Andrew,  189. 
Marville,  C.,  180. 
Mary,  Queen,  62. 
Mason,  304. 
Masters  of  Wood  Engraving, 

Linton's,  173. 
Mathews,  Captain,  41. 
Mathews,    Charles,    the    elder, 

146,  157. 

Matted  Gallery,  the,  192. 
Matthews,  88. 
Maurus,  Terentianus,  306. 


Mazarine,  194. 
Mead,  Dr.,  286. 
Meadows,  Kenny,  165. 
Meissonier,  180. 
Melcombe,  Lord,  288. 
Memoirs,  Carleton's,  63. 
Memoirs  of  a  Protestant,  306- 

325- 

Memoirs  of  the  Life  and 
Writings  of  the  late  Dr. 
Samuel  Johnson,  114. 

Memorandum  Book  for  1805, 
170. 

Menagiana,  Goldsmith's  ac- 
quaintance with,  13. 

Mercutio,  Lewis  as,  105. 

Merry  Monarch,  225. 

Merton,  61. 

Metastasio,  91. 

Metropolitan  Board  of  Works, 
the,  236. 

Mews,  the,  of  Richmond  Ter- 
race, 184. 

Michelet,  308. 

Middlesex,  Lady,  288,  289. 

Military  Garden,  the  old,  278. 

Military  Library,  the,  56. 

Millar,  Andrew,  20. 

Milner,  Dr.  John,  316. 

Milton,  John,  237. 

Minor,  Foote's,  49. 

Mirror  of  Amusement,  171. 

Miscellany  of  New  Poems, 
Luck's,  240. 

Mr.  Bickerstaff  s  Lucubrations, 
76. 

Mitchel,  the  banker,  47. 

Mohocks,  the,  247,  258. 

Moira,  Lord,  48. 

Moliere,  66,  97. 


General  Index. 


35' 


Molly   Mog,    Gay's   ballad  on, 

273- 
Monarch,    the    famous    white 

charger,  42. 
Moncrieff,  88. 

Monk,  Duke  of  Albemarle,  186. 
Monkstorm,  60. 
Monmouth,    Duchess   of,    248, 

253.  259- 

Monmouth,  Duke  of,  187,  248. 
Monsey,  Dr.  Messenger,  94. 
Monsieur  Tonson,  the  author  of, 

87-108;  217. 
Montagu,  Lady  Mary  Wortley, 

260. 

Montagu,  304. 
Montaigne,  n. 

Montgomery,  Earl  of,   186,  235. 
Monthly  Review,  the,   n,  312, 

313,  316,  317,  318. 
Monvel,  158. 
Moore,  Arthur,  151. 
Moore,     Thomas,      204 ;      his 

Diary,    208,     217;      Lallah 

Rookh,  218  ;  219. 
Morbleu,  Monsieur,  88. 
More,  Hannah,  134. 
Morecombe-lake,  256. 
Morel-Fatio,  Antoine  L6on,  the 

marine  artist,  310,  311. 
Morgan,  Professor  Augustus  de, 

297. 

Morley,  Professor  Henry,  137. 
Morning,  257. 
Morning  Chronicle,  the,  163, 
Morocco,  200. 
Morris,  Henry,  158. 
Morrison  collection,  the,  67. 
Moses,  171,  176. 
Motet,  the  champion  farcttr,  39. 


Moulsey,  210. 
Mountain,  60. 
Mulready,  176,  177,  181. 
Murphy,  Arthur,  126,  134,  135  ; 

the  Citizen,  159. 
Murray,  Mr.  John,  54,  265. 
Murray,  Sir  Robert,  189. 
Mus6edes  Monuments,  the,  162. 
Museum  Leverianum,  the,  294. 
My  Own  Boastings,  Angelo's, 

54- 

Mylius,  August,  178. 
Myra,  lines  to,  Goldsmith's,  14. 

N. 

NAG'S  HEAD  YARD,  301. 
Nairne,    the   Highland  girl  of, 

140. 

Nantes,  the  Edict  of,  309. 
Napier,   Rev.    Alexander,    113, 

120,  128,132,  133,  136,  137. 
Napier,     Mrs.,     Johnsoniana, 

i'3>  "5>  '33- 
National  Gallery,  the,  220,  231, 

233.  238. 
National  Portrait  Gallery,   the, 

231,  261. 

Neapolitan  Club,  the,  46,  204. 
Nelson's  Column,  233. 
Netherlands,  the,  312,  324. 
Neville,  Miss,  31. 
New  Atalantis,  the,  68,  80. 
New  Bath  Guide,  Anstey's,  18. 
Newbury,  F.,  167. 
Newcastle  Theatre,  the,  105. 
Newcome,  dive,  165. 
Newcomes,  the,  50. 
New  Lisle  Street,  294. 
Newmarket,  210. 
Newport,  the  Earl  of,  278, 


352 


General  Index. 


Newport  House,  277. 

New  Simile,  A,  Goldsmith's,  13  ; 
Swift  the  model  for,  13. 

New  South  Wales,  134. 

Newton,    Sir   Isaac,    276,    296, 
298,  299,  300,  301. 

Newlon:   his  Friend:  and  his 
Niece,  297. 

Nichols,  75,  76,  no,  300,  302. 

Nicolini,  285. 

Night,  Hogarth's,  237. 

Nightingale,  the,  320,  321,  322. 

Night  Thoughts,  Young's,  Gold- 
smith's interest  in,  12. 

Nimes,  310. 

Nivernais,  the  Duke  de,  a  for- 
eign prot6g6  of,  33. 

Noctes  Ambrosiance,  the,  206. 

Nodier,  Charles,  180. 

Nore,  the,  282. 

Normanby,  Marquis  of,  186. 

Normandy,  222. 

N orris,  Henry,  57. 

Northampton  House,  228. 

Northcote,  99,  142,  143,  147. 

Northern  France,  150. 

Northumberland,  Duke  of,  228, 
229,  230. 

Northumberland  Hotel,  230. 

Northumberland     House,    220, 
221,  227,  229,  230,  238. 

Northumberland     Street,     222 
227. 

Norwood,  289. 

Notre  Dame,  153. 

Nottinghams,  the,  78. 

Novelist's    Library,    Roscoe's, 
176. 

Novelist's      Magazine,     Harri- 
son's,  168,  169,  172. 


GATES,  Titus,  227. 

O'Brien,  Nelly,  304. 

O'Connor,  John.  276. 

Ode  on  Mr.  Pelhatn,  Garrick's, 
141. 

Old  Bailey,  the,  44,  91,  323. 

Old  Whig,  the,  57,  58. 

Oldys,  the  antiquary,  92. 

Oliver  Goldsmith  ;  a  Biography, 
230. 

On  a  Beautiful  Youth  struck 
blind  with  Lightning,  Gold- 
smith's, 14. 

On  the  Sublime  and  Beautiful, 
Burke's,  313. 

Opera  House  buildings,  the,  54. 

"  Ophthalmiater,"  89. 

Opie,  John,  99,  147,  149,  296. 

Orange  Coffee  House,  the,  54. 

Orange  Street,  279,  296,  301. 

Orestes,  159. 

Ormond,  the  Dukes  of,  60,  62, 
187. 

Osbaldeston,  Simon,  235. 

Osbaldistone,  Frank,  165. 

Ossianic  controversy,  the,  114. 

Ostend,  48,  73. 

Otway,  102. 

Oudenarde,  285. 

Overall,  Mr.  W.  H.,  277. 

Ovid,  247. 

Owen,  Henry,  72. 

Oxford,  61. 

Oxford,  Lord,  253. 

Oxfordshire,  259,  262. 

P. 

PAINE,  Thomas,  161 ;  Rights 
of  Man,  161. 


General  Index. 


353 


Palace,  74. 

Palais  de  Justice,  the,  162. 

Palais  du  Tribunal,  see  Tribu- 

nat,  the. 

Palais  Royal,  the,  160,  163. 
Palmer,  Barbara,  189,  193,  224. 
Palmer,  Jack,  the  actor,  105, 106. 
Pamela,  Pope's,  74. 
Pamela,  Richardson's,  20. 
Panopticon,  the,  276. 
Pantagruel,  30. 
Panthea,  Gay's,  250. 
Pantheon,  the,  135. 
Paoli,  General,  41. 
Parchment  Library,  182. 
Paris,  22,  33,  38,  39,  43, 47,  145, 

149,  150,  153,  164,  210,  280, 

307- 

Paris,  Congreve  as,  289. 
Park,  74. 

Parker,  James,  169. 
Parkinson,  Mr.,  293. 
Park  Lane,  316. 
Parliament  Street,  183,  197. 
Parnell,  313. 
Parr,  Dr.,  94,  95. 
Parsons,  227. 
Pasqitin,  Fielding's,  23. 
Pastorals,  the,  247. 
Paternoster  Row.  314. 
Patronage  of  British  Art,  169. 
Paumier,  M.  Henri,  311,  324. 
Pavia,  14. 

"  Payne,  Honest  Tom,"  232. 
Paynes,    The    Two,   Dobson's, 

•33- 

Peckham.  8. 

Peckham  Academy,  316. 
Peel,  220. 
Pelham,  204. 


Pelham,  Mr.,  141,  142. 

Pembroke,  Earl  of,  186 ;  see  also 
Herbert,  Henry. 

Pennant,  196  ;  Some  Account  of 
London,  197;  198,  294. 

Penshurst,  279. 

Pent-teazel,  Lady,  50. 

Pepys,  Samuel,  188,  192,  193, 
200;  his  Diary,  201,  202; 
224,  279,  280. 

Perceval,  Sir  John,  83. 

Percies,  the  palace  of,  221,  228. 

Percy,  Algernon,  Earl  of  North- 
umberland, 228. 

Percy,  Thomas,  17,76,  no,  134, 

223,  228. 

Perreau,  the  Brothers,  44. 
Perrean,  Farmer,  44. 
Peterborough,  Lord,  190. 
Peters,  Cromwell's  chaplain,  99, 

224,  225. 
Petersham,  262. 
Peter  the  Great,  291. 
Petits-Augustins,  the,  162. 
Petit-Trianon,  103. 
Phldre,  Duchesnois  in,  157. 
Philip,    Earl    of    Montgomery, 

2.35  • 
Philips,  Ambrose,  Pastorals, 

251. 
Philips,  John,  Splendid  Skill- 

"'.C,  =43- 
Phillips,     Sir     Richard,    Walk 

from  London  to  Kev?,  157. 
"Phiz,"  166. 
Piazza,  the,  42.  45,  135. 
Picart,  M.,  159. 
Picart's  Theatre,  159. 
Piccadilly,  48,  73,  175,  262,  295. 
Pic-Nic  Society,  the,  51. 

23 


354 


General  Index. 


Pimlico,  232. 
Pinchbecks,  the,  107. 
Pindar,  Peter,  47,  99,  103. 
Pindaric  Odes,  Thomas  Gray's, 
12;  Goldsmith's  criticism  of, 

12. 

Pine,  301. 

Pinwell,  G.  J.,  177. 

Piozzi,  Hesther  Lynch,  115, 116, 
118,  126,  133,  299. 

Place  du  Carrousel,  the,  152. 

Place  Vendome,  the,  151. 

Plagiary,  Sir  Fretful,  97. 

Pleasures  of  Memory,  Rogers', 
174. 

Pliant,  Sir  Paul,  Macklin  as, 
101. 

Poems  far  Young  Ladies,  Gold- 
smith's, 17. 

Poems  of  Goldsmith  and  Par- 
nell,  313. 

Poetical  Miscellany,  Stecle's, 
250. 

Poetry,  Temple  on,  26. 

Poets,  Johnson's,  239. 

Poinsinet,  Come  die  Lyriquc,  160. 

Poirson,  M.  V.  A.,  181. 

Polite  Learning  in  Europe, 
Goldsmith's,  n,  15,  22,  26. 

Pollnitz,  91. 

Polly,  Miss  Fenton  as,  265 ; 
266,  268. 

"Poly-Olbion,"  Drayton's,  278. 

Pont  Neuf,  151. 

Pontoise,  150. 

Pope,  Alexander,  Goldsmith's 
admiration  for  the  work  of, 
12;  13,  16,  19,  32,  58,  74,  83, 
91,  109,  128,  142,  143,  176, 
242,  246,  247,  248,  249,  250, 


251.  253>  255>  258»  259>  26°. 

262,  263,  266,  269,  270,  271, 

273,  288. 

Portland,  Lord,  285. 
Portsmouth,  47.  48,  49. 
Portsmouth,   Duchess  of,    190, 

191,  194. 

Portugal  Street,  98. 
Poultry,  the,  120,  312,  314. 
Powell,  as  Honey-wood,  25. 
Praed,  W.  M.,  203. 
Pratcriia,  Ruskin's,  142. 
Prague,  91. 
Present   State  of   Wit,   Gay's, 

245,  246. 
Preville,  39,  158. 
Primrose,  George,  102,  167,  169, 

179,  181. 

Primrose,    Mrs.,  30,   171,   176, 

180,  181. 

Primrose,  Olivia,  167,  169,  170, 

171,  i/3)  J77- 
Primrose,  Sophia,  168,169,  '73) 

175-  J76,  179- 

Primrose,  Doctor,  30,  167,  ifio, 
170,  171,  173,  175,  176,  179, 
180,  181. 

Prince  Arthur,  246. 

Prince  Titi,  History  of,  133. 

Principia,  the,  297.         ; 

Prior,  Matthew,  Goldsmith's 
admiration  for  and  imitation 
of,  12,  13 ;  accuses  him  of 
plagiarism,  15;  19,  134,  176, 
237  ;  Female  Phaeton,  240 ; 
260,  261,  269,  273,  282,  283, 
298,  314. 

Prior  Park.  102. 

Pritchard,  Mrs.,  101. 

Privy-Council  Office,  the,  186, 


General  Index. 


355 


Privy  Garden,  the,  iSS,  189,  190, 

196. 

Privy  Stairs,  the,  192,  193,  201. 
Procession,  the,  62. 
Procession  to  Church,  Bewick's, 

J73- 

Prue,  70,  74,  75,  76. 

Pryor,  Samuel,  237. 

Psalmanazar,  George,  143. 

Public  Advertiser,  the,  in, 
202. 

Publick  Spirit  of  the  Whigs, 
Swift's,  78. 

Pulteney,  259. 

Punchinello,  225. 

Purdon,  Ned,  Goldsmith's  epi- 
taph on,  14. 

Puttick  and  Simpson,  Messrs., 

3°3- 

Pye,  169. 
Pyne,  W.  H.,  53,  230. 

Q. 

Quack  Maiirus,  Dryden's,  64. 
Quantin,  181. 

Quarterly  Review,  the,  311. 
Queen    Charlotte,   the,   Howe's 

vessel,  48. 
Queensberry,    the   Duchess    of, 

37,  47,    261,    266,    267,   268, 

270,  271. 

Queensberry,  the  Duke  of,  37, 
240,  261,  263,  267,  268,  270. 
Queen  Street,  99. 
Qnin,  the  actor,  102,  103. 
Quisquilius,  Dibdin's,  147. 

R. 

RACINE,  158. 

Raimbach,    Abraham,    42,    55 ; 


engravings  of,  144 ;  birth  of, 
145  ;  childhood  of,  145  ;  edu- 
cation of,  146 ;  apprenticed  to 
Hall,  146 ;  his  first  definite 
employment,  148 ;  in  Paris, 
149  ;  a  view  of  Napoleon,  152- 
163  ;  returns  to  England,  163  ; 
his  Memoirs,  163  ;  his  death, 
164. 

Ralph,  Case  of  Authors  by  Pro- 
fession, 22. 

Rambach,  F.  E.,  309. 

Rambler,  25. 

Ramsay,  Allan,  296. 

Ranelagh,  135,  288. 

"  Rape  of  the  Lock,"  Miscel- 
lany, Lintott's,  247. 

Raphael,  Transfiguration,  153. 

Ravenet,  146. 

Raymond,  Mr.  Samuel,  134. 

Rayner,  240. 

Reay,  Miss  Martha,  45. 

Records  of  My  Life,   Taylor's, 

52>  93- 

Redas,  the  Frenchman,  54. 

"  Red  Cross,"  the,  239. 

Reed,  Isaac,  313,  314. 

Reflections  on  the  French  Revo- 
lution^ 100. 

Rehearsal,  Buckingham's,  255. 

Religious  Tract  Society,  the, 
311,  318. 

Reliques  of  Ancient  Poetry, 
Percy's,  17,  223. 

Rembrandt,  153. 

Reminiscences,  Angelo's,  33- 
56. 

Rent  Day,  Raimbach's,  144. 

"  Repository  of  Arts,"  175. 

Restless,  Tom,  112,  113. 


356 


General  Index. 


Retaliation,  Goldsmith's,  1 8,  19, 
51,96. 

Reynolds,  Sir  Joshua,  18,  35, 
99,  100,  117,  121,  134,  137, 
142,  HS.  I44.  155.  229,  276, 
277,  299,  3°°,  302,  3°3»  3°4, 

3°5- 

Rhenish  Wine  House,  the,  237. 
Rich,  Christopher,  67,  265,  268. 
Richard,  Earl  of  Barrymore,  50. 
Richard  II.,  231. 
Richardson,  the  fire-eater,  280. 
Richardson,    Samuel,    Pamela, 

20  ;  22. 

Richelieu,  the  tomb  of,  163. 
Richland,  Miss,  25. 
Richmond  Terrace,  Mews,  184, 

185,  190. 

Richter,  Ludwig,  179. 
Rights  of  Man,  Paine's,  161. 
Rivals,  Tlte,  Sheridan's,  29. 
Rivarol,  206. 
Rivella,  68. 
Rivett,  John,  226. 
Road  to  Ruin,    Holcroft's,  161, 

296. 

Robe  Chamber,  the,  192. 
Roberson  &  Co.,  Messrs.,  304. 
Robespierre,  154. 
Rochefoucauld,  181. 
Roehampton,  226. 
Rogers.  174,  204,  205,  206,  2iS; 

Human  Life,  218. 
Rollos,  Mr.  John,  So. 
Romeo  and  Juliet,  38. 
Romney,  J.,  171,  175. 
Rosciad,  Churchill's,  106. 
Roscius,  39. 
Roscoe,  176. 
Rose,  the  Royal  gardener,  200. 


Rose  and  Crown,  the,  312. 
Rose,  Dr.,  of  Chiswick,  36. 
"  Rose"  Inn,  the,  273. 
Rotterdam,  306. 
Roubillac,  38. 
Rouen,  150. 

Roustan,  Mameluke,  152. 
Rowe,  Fair  Penitent  of,  102. 
Rowlandson.   Thomas,    38,   47, 

4S,  49>  55>  l67,  i/4,  i/5,  J76, 

182. 

"  Rowley,"  stallion,  231. 
Roxane,  Duchesnois  as,  157. 
Royal    Academy,   the,   49,    99, 

148,  155,  276,  304. 
Royal  Anne,  the,  321. 
Royal  Society,  the,  279. 
Royal    United   Service   Institu- 
tion, the,  184,  195. 
Rubens,  153,  199. 
Rubini,  156. 
Rucld,  Mrs.   Margaret  Caroline, 

trial  of,  44. 
Rndge,  Miss,  44. 
"  Rummer  "  Tavern,  the,  237. 
Runciman,        Alexander,       the 

painter,  302. 
Rupert,  Prince,  190. 
Rural  Sports,  Gay's,  249,  250, 

251. 
Ruskin,  John,   Prcrterita,    142, 

143- 

Russell,  Lord,  156. 
Russell  Street,  114. 
Ryland,  the  engraver,  55. 

S. 

ST.  ANTOINE,  M.,  231. 
St.  Denis,  150. 
Sabines,  the,  David's,  154. 


General  Index. 


357 


Sabloniere  Hotel,  the,  300. 

"  Sacharissa,"     Waller's,    278, 

280. 
St.  George's,  Hanover  Square, 

36. 

St.  Germain's,  191. 
St.  Giles,  87,  222. 
St.  Huberti,  Mile.,  157. 
St.  James's  Church,  73,  74. 
St.  James's  Palace,  100,  186. 
St.  James's  Park,  185,  187,  221. 
St.    James's    Park    menagerie, 

234- 

St.  James's  Square,  51,  292. 
St.  John's  College  beer,  53. 
St.  Maclou  Church,  the,  150. 
St.  Margaret's,  73. 
St.  Martin's  Church,   220,   221, 

225,  227,  231,  232,  234. 
St.  Martin's-in-the-Fields,  73. 
St.    Martin's   Lane,    145,    234, 

277. 

St.  Martin's,  the  Parish  of,  278. 
St.  Martin's  Place,  161. 
St.   Martin's   Street,   296,   298, 

299>  3°°:  301- 
St.  Mary  Rounceval,  hospital  of, 

221. 
St.  Patrick,  the  Roman  Catholic 

Church  of,  40. 
St.  Paul's  Churchyard,  147. 
St.  Stephen's,  183. 
Salisbury,  England,  35,  167. 
Salisbury  Plain,  256. 
Salisbury  Square,  317. 
Salon,  the  French,  156,  164. 
Salvator,  40. 
Sandby,  Thomas,  the  architect, 

197. 
Sandwich,  Lord,  45,  201. 


Sans  Parcil,  the  French  vessel, 

47- 

Sans  Souci  Theatre,  the,  295. 
Sarah,  Duchess  of  Marlborough, 

90. 

Satchel!,  Miss,  105. 
Savage,  81,  83. 
Savile,  Sir  George,  276,  291. 
Savile  House,  290,  291,  292. 
Saxe,  Marshal,  91. 
Sayer.  James,  104. 
.Sayes  Court,  291. 
Schicksal  dcr  Protcstaitten  in 

Frankreich,  Rambach's,  309, 

312. 

School  for  Scandal,  105. 
Scot,  225. 

Scotland  Yard,  185,  195,  228. 
Scottish  Office,  the,  196. 
Scribleriad,  the,  97. 
Scriblerus  Club,  the,  253. 
Scroope.  225. 

Scrub,  Mrs.  Abington  as,  104. 
Scurlock,    Miss    Mary,   marries 

Richard  Steele,  70,  71,  72. 
Scurlock,  Mrs.,  73,  74. 
Seasons,  the,  237. 
Sedley,  Catharine,  Countess  of 

Dorchester,  287. 
Sefton,  Lord,  217. 
Sermons,  Foster's,  136. 
Sesenheim,  179. 
Seven  Years'  War,  the,  33. 
Sharpe,  175. 

Shaw,  Rev.  William,  114. 
Shee,  149. 
Shepherd?*    Week,  Gay's,  250, 

251,  252,  254. 
Sheppard,  Jack,  90,  277. 
Sheridan,  Richard  Brinsley,  The 


358 


General  Index. 


Rivals,  29;  41,  95,  97,  98, 146, 
147. 

Sheridan,  Tom,  41,  49. 
She   Stoops    to    Conquer,  Gold- 
smith's, 27;    first  production 
of.  28 ;  its  success,  29,  30,  31 ; 
his  last   dramatic    work,    31  ; 
his  best  production,   32. 
Shield  Gallery,  the,  192. 
Short  View  of  the    Immorality 
and  Prof  oneness  of  the  Eng- 
lish Stage,  Collier's.  66. 

Shrewsbury,  Duke  of,  285. 

Shuter,    as    Croaker,     24,    25  ; 
anecdote  of,  52. 

Siddons,  Mrs.,  98,  105,  304. 

Sidney  Alley,  294. 

Sigismunda,  238. 

Simon,  John,  284. 

Sion  House,  at  Isleworth,  228. 

Sir  Tremendous,  259. 

Sketch  of  his  own  Character, 
Gray's,  19. 

Sleep-Walker,  the,  51. 

Smirke,   Sir    Robert,    148,    165, 
199. 

Smith,  Adam,  133. 

Smith,  Anker,  170. 

Smith,  "  Gentleman,"  the  actor, 
105. 

Smith,   J.   T.,    197 ;    Westmin- 
ster, 197 ;  198. 

Smith,  "  Rainy  Day,"  299. 

Smith,  Sydney,  204;  Lady  Hol- 
land's Life  of,  205  ;  206. 

Smith,  Thomas,  322,  323. 

Smithfield,  61,  280. 

Smollett,  38. 

Sneer,  Palmer  as,  tob. 

Soane  Museum,  the,  238. 


Societe  des  Ecoles  du  Dimanche, 
the,  310,  311. 

Society  of  Antiquaries,  the,  197. 

Society  of  Artists  of  Great 
Britain,  the,  238. 

Society  of  Arts,  the,  300. 

Soho,  35,  40,  107. 

Some  Account  of  London,  Pen- 
nant's, 197. 

Somers,  246. 

Somerset  House  Gazette,  the,  52. 

Soubise,  47. 

South  American  Ode,  A,  Gold- 
smith's, 14. 

Southampton,  48. 

South  Kensington,  49,  170,  241. 

Spectator,  the,  60,  76,  77,  83, 
187,  200,  244,  246,  283,  286. 

Spence,  266. 

Spirit  of  Johnson,  the,  137. 

Spithead,  321. 

Splendid  Shilling,  the,  Philips's, 

243- 
Spring  Gardens,  183,  185,  187, 

221,  234,  235,  236,  238. 
Spy,  the,  brigantine,  320. 
''Squire,  the,  170,  177,  181. 
Squire  Westiern,  Picart  as,  159, 

1 60. 

Squirrel,  the,  privateer,  322. 
Stadtholder's     collection,     the, 

T53- 

Sttige.  the.  1 06. 
Standard  Library,  the,  136. 
Steele,  Richard,  the  elder,  60. 
Steele,  Richard,  the  latest  Life 

of,  57-86;   The  Funeral,  57; 

birth  of,  60  ;  his  early  life,  60 ; 

at  the  Charterhouse,  60 ;  the 

Christian  Hero,   61,   65 ;   at 


General  Index. 


359 


Christ  Church,  61 ;  at  Merton, 
6 1 ;  his  intercourse  with  Addi- 
son,  61  ;  a  "  gentleman  of  the 
army,"  61-63;  his  duel,  64; 
the  Lying  Lover,  66 ;  the 
Tender  Husband,  66 ;  his 
chancery  suit,  67  ;  duped,  68; 
his  marriage,  69 ;  death  of  his 
wife,  69 ;  appointed  Gentle- 
man Waiter  to  Prince  George, 
70 ;  Gazetteer,  70  ;  his  second 
marriage,  70-73;  his  lavish 
living,  74  ;  his  income,  74 ; 
his  letters  to  his  wife,  75 ; 
Commissioner  of  Stamps,  77  ; 
dallying  with  the  stage,  77  ; 
death  of  his  mother-in-law, 
77 ;  his  controversy  with  Swift, 
78 ;  in  politics,  78  ;  impeached, 
79;  Apology  for  Himself  and 
his  Writings,  79 ;  knighted, 
79  ;  his  death,  79  ;  Conscious 
Lovers,  79 ;  death  of  Lady 
Steele,  79 ;  his  connection  with 
Drury  Lane  Theatre,  So;  new 
light  on  the  work  of,  So;  his 
character,  80 ;  branded  as  a 
drunkard,  82  ;  his  standing  as 
a  man  of  letters,  83 ;  the 
Tatter,  244  ;  246,  250  ;  Poeti- 
cal Miscellany,  250 ;  255, 256, 
257,  283,  284. 

Steele,  Lady,  71 ;  death  of,  79. 

Steel  Yard,  the,  200. 

Steenie.  235. 

Steevens,  George,  the  Shake- 
speare critic,  147,  259. 

Stella,  245,  283,  298. 

Steme,  39.  169. 

Stock,  Elliot,  314. 


Stockbridge,  78,  256. 

Stocks  Market,  226. 

Stone  Gallery,  the,  190,  191. 

Storace,  Stephen,  146,  147. 

Stothard,    144,    145,    167,    168, 

169,  170,  171, 174,  175,  181. 
Strafford,  Lady,  283,  285. 
Strafford,  Lord,  283. 
Strand,  221. 

Stratford  Jubilee,  the,  37. 
Stratton,  286. 
Strawberry  Hill,  200. 
Strawberry     Hill     Press,     the, 

51 

Stretch,  Margaret,  marries  Rich- 
ard Steele,  69  ;  her  death,  69 

7i- 

Strype,  227. 

Stuarts,  the,  196. 

Stubbs,  George,  42. 

Suckling,  229. 

Suffolk.  Lady.  255. 

Suffolk  House,  228. 

Suffolks,  the,  228. 

Sun,  The,  92. 

Sunderland,  Countess  of,   278 ; 

the  second,  280. 
Sunderland,  Lord,  73. 
Superville,  M.  Daniel  de,  307, 

324- 

Surgeons'  Hall,  7,  46. 
Survey    of   1592,    Agas',    221, 

222,   223. 

Suspicious  Husband,  Hoadly's, 

'35- 

Suspirius,  Johnson's,  25. 
Sussex,  the  Duke  of,  46. 
Sutton  Street,  40. 
Swan  Close,  278. 
Sweet    William's  Farewell  to 


360 


General  Index. 


Black  Ey'd  Susan,  Gay's, 
260. 

Swift,  Jonathan,  Goldsmith's 
admiration  for  and  imitation 
of,  12,  13 ;  58,  76,  77,  78  ;  the 
Importance  of  the  "  Guar- 
dian'" considered,  78;  Pub- 
lick  Spirit  of  the  Whigs,  78  ; 
81,  84,  94,  109  ;  City  Shower, 
213,  242 ;  243,  245,  246,  247, 
249,  252,  253,  254,  257,  261, 
262,  263,  264,  265,  266,  267, 
268,  270,  271,  273,  282,  286, 
298. 

Sivivellers,  the,  165. 

Sybaris,  209. 

Sydney,  134. 

Sydney,  Algernon,  278. 

Sydney,  Dorothy,  278. 

Sydney,  Robert,  Earl  of  Leices- 
ter, 278. 

Symes,  Elinor,  60. 

Sympathy,  Dodsley's,  16. 

T. 

TAINE,  M.,  269. 

Talcs,  Gay's,  273. 

Tales  of  the  Genii,  Cooke's, 
148. 

Talking  Oak,  Tennyson's,  18. 

Talma,  the  tragedian,  159. 

Taste,  Foote's,  40. 

Tatler,  the,  60,  76,  83,  244, 
245,  246,  257. 

Taylor,  "  Chevalier,"  see  Tay- 
lor, John,  the  elder. 

Taylor,  John,  the  elder,  89-92. 

Taylor,  John,  the  Second,  92, 
101. 


Taylor,  John,  the  Third,  88; 
Monsieur  Tonson,  87,  88; 
his  grandfather,  89 ;  his  father, 
92 ;  an  oculist,  92 ;  in  jour- 
nalism, 92  ;  as  a  raconteur,  93  ; 
Records  of  My  Life,  52,  93  ; 
anecdotes  of  literary  men,  93- 
100 ;  anecdotes  of  actors  and 
actresses,  100-106. 

Taylor,  John  Stirling,  93. 

Tedder,  Mr.  H.  R.,  110,  130. 

Teillagory,  the  elder,  34. 

Temple,  the,  94,  135. 

Temple  Bar,  219,  278. 

Temple,  Sir  William,  on  Poetry, 
26,  122,  131. 

Tender  Husband,  the,  Steele's, 
57,  66. 

Tenison,  Archbishop,  300. 

Tennant,  273. 

Tennis  Court,  the,  186,  187, 
197. 

Tennyson,  Lord  Alfred,  Talk- 
ing Oak,  1 8. 

Texier,  180. 

Thackeray,  W.  M.,  Denis 
Du-val,  44  ;  156,  206  ;  English 
Humourists,  2^9. 

Thames,  the,  184,  185,  193, 
201,  321,  323. 

Thatched   House    Tavern,'  the, 

35- 
Theatre  de  la  Republique,  the, 

see  Theatre  Frangais. 
Theatre  de  la  Republique  et  des 

Arts,  the,  see   Grand   Opera, 

the. 
Theatre  Frangais,  the,  152,  156, 

158. 
Theobald,  256. 


General  Index. 


Theocritus,  251. 

Theodore,  King  of  Corsica,  91. 

Thomas,  George,  177. 

Thompson,  Mr.,  87. 

Thompson,  Mr.  Hugh,  182. 

Thompson,  John,  173,  176. 

Thomson,  271. 

Thornhill,  Sir  William,  170, 
171,  181. 

Thrale,  Mrs.,  116,  118,  127,  136. 

Thrale's,  135. 

Three  Hours  before  Marriage, 
Gay's,  259. 

Threnodia  Augustalis,  Gold- 
smith's, 18. 

Thurston,  148,  173. 

"Tickler,"  206. 

Tilt-Yard,  the,  186,  196,  197. 

Tilt-yard  Guard,  the,  67. 

"  Timon's  Villa,"  276. 

Tifkin,  Mr.,  57. 

Titian,  228. 

Tofts,  Mary,  the  Godalming 
rabbit-breeder,  90. 

To  Iris  in  Bow  Street,  Gold- 
smith's, 14. 

Tom  Jones  a  Londres,  Des- 
forges',  159. 

Tompkins,  223. 

Tonson,  76,  249,  286. 

Tonson  and  Lintott,  Messrs., 
260. 

Tonson  and  Watts,  Messrs., 
241. 

Tooke,  Home,  41. 

Toplady,  299. 

Tower  Guard,  the,  65. 

Tower  of  London,  the,  65,  200. 

Towers,  Rev.  Joseph,  118. 

Town  Talk,  68. 


Trafalgar    Square,     220,     231, 

233- 
Transfiguration,        Raphael's, 

!53- 

Translations,  Gay's,  273. 

Traveller,  The,  Goldsmith's, 
10,  15,  17,  18,  19,  20,  32, 
no. 

Travels  in  France,  Holcroft's, 
161. 

Treasury,  the,  187,  189. 

Treatise  on  Human  Knowl- 
edge, the,  83. 

Tree,  Miss  Ellen,  108,  217. 

Tremamondo,  Dominico  Angelo 
Malevolti,  see  Angelo,  Do- 
minico. 

Tribunal,  the,  160. 

Trinity  College,  7. 

Trivia,  Gay's,  232,  244,  257, 
258. 

Trotter,  T.,  in. 

Tuileries  Gardens,  the,  151, 152. 

Tunbridge,  89. 

Tunbridge  Wells,  262. 

Turin,  283. 

Turner,  144,  149. 

'  Twos  when  the  Seas  were  roar- 
ing. Gay's,  260,  273. 

Twickenham,  262,  293. 

Twopenny  postboys,  204. 

Tyburn,  44,  45. 

Tyers,  Jonathan,  112. 

Tyers,    Tom,    112,    113,    114, 

!33- 
Tyne,  the,  321. 

U. 

UNDERBILL,  John,  239,  249. 
Union  Club,  221,  233. 


362 


General  Index. 


Upper  Mews  Gate,  232. 

Ursa  Major,  133. 

Utrecht,    the    Treaty,   78,   282, 

324- 
Uwins,  Thomas,  172. 

V. 

Valerie  Marneffe,  44. 
Vanbrugh,  31 ;  Confederacy,  50; 

237- 

Van  Dyck,  278,  300. 
Vane  Room,  the,  192. 
Van  Nost,  295. 
Van  Woortz,  M.,  308. 
Vatican,  the,  153. 
Vauxhall,  47. 

Vauxhall  Gardens,  112,  236. 
Vendee,  La,  310. 
Venetian    Senators,    Evelyn's, 

229. 

Venice,  42. 

Venice  Preserved,  Otway's,  102. 
Venus  de'  Medici,  the,  153. 
Veratius,  Gibbon's,  107. 
Vernes,  M.  Felix,  308,  309,  310. 
Vernet,  Carle,  154. 
Vernet,  Horace,  154. 
Versailles,  191. 
Verses,   Goldsmith's,    for    Jane 

Contarine,   10. 
Vertue,  197. 
VeVy's,  163. 
Vestris,  the  elder,  157. 
Vetusta  Monumenta,  the,  197. 
Vicar  ofWakefield,  Goldsmith's, 

9,  17,  21,  32,  166,    167,    168, 

169,  170,  171,   172,  173,   174, 

175,  176,  177,  178,  179.  i8°. 
181,  182,  314. 


Vidal,  M.  Franjois,  308,  309, 
310  ;  La  Fuite  du  Camisard, 
310. 

Village  Politicians,  Raimbach's, 
144,  164. 

Viner,  Sir  Robert,  226. 

Virginians,  the,  91. 

Vitrmius  Britannicus,  Camp- 
bell's, 183. 

Voltaire,  14,  91,  100,  297. 

W. 

WADHAM  COLLEGE,  123. 
Wakefield,  102,  179. 
Wakefield  family,  170. 
Wale,  238. 
Wales,  70,  73. 

Wales,  the  Prince  of,  46,  263. 
Wales,  the  Princess  of,  35,  263. 
Walesby,  F.  P.,  123. 
Walker,  265. 

Walker,  the  engraver,  168. 
Walker,  Dr.  Thomas,  60. 
Walk  from  London  to  Kew, 

Phillips',  157. 
Waller,  220,  223,  278. 
Wallingford  House,  234,  235. 
Walpole,    Horace,   30,    51,   91, 

103,  107,  124,   141,  142,  172, 

200,  225,  226,  229,  290. 
Walpole,  Sir  Robert,  262,  265, 

266. 

Walton,  67. 
Warburton,  102,  103. 
Ward,  Dr.  Joshua,  89. 
Wardour  Street,  40. 
Wardrobe,  the  old.  195. 
Wargrave  Court,  50. 
Wargrave-on-'fhames,  50,  51. 


General  Index. 


363 


Warwick  Lane,  233. 
Watson,  the  mezzotinter,  144. 
Watteau,  181. 

Welch,    Saunders,    the   magis- 
trate, 301. 
Welcome  from    Greece,    Gay's, 

273- 

Wenman,  J.,  167,  178. 

Wentworth,  Peter,  285. 

Wenzel,  Baron  de,  92. 

West,  Benjamin,  Battle  of  the 
Boyne,  42  ;  99  ;  Cromwell  dis- 
solving the  Long  Parliament, 
147;  149,  155;  Death  on  the 
Pale  Horse,  155. 

Westall,  Richard,  147,  175. 

West  Indian,  Richard  Cumber- 
land, 27,  97. 

Westmeath,  8. 

Westminster,  73,  107,   145,  188. 

Westminster,  Smith's,  197. 

Westminster  Abbey,  38,  185, 
221,  222,  270,  272. 

Westminster  Bridge  Road  Am- 
phitheatre, 35. 

Westminster  Hall,  243. 

Westminster,  Palace  of,  220. 

Westminster  Review,  the,  239. 

Weston,  Lord  High  Treasurer. 
226. 

Wexford,  the  county  of,  62. 

What  d1  ye  Call  it,  Gay's,  255. 

Wheatley,  202,  295. 

Whigs,  the,  78. 

Whistlecraft ,  204. 

Whiston,  286. 

\Vhitcomb  Street,  222,  277. 

Whitefoord,  Caleb,  96. 

Whitehall  Bridge,  201. 

Whitehall  Court,  183,  195. 


Whitehall     Gardens,    35,    185, 

201. 

Whitehall  Gate,  196. 
Whitehall,    Old,     56,     73,    74, 

188,     201,     202,     221,     224, 

225. 

Whitehall  Palace,  234. 
Whitehall    Palace    Stairs,    191, 

193,  195.  282. 
Whitehall  Yard,  196. 
White's,  204. 
Whittingham,  170,  173. 
Wife  of  Bath,  the,  Gay's,  250. 
Wild,  Jonathan,  91. 
Wilkes,  41,  91. 
Wilkie,  Sir  David,  144,  164. 
Wilkins,  234. 

William  III.,  King,  42,  62. 
Williams,  J.,  90. 
Williams,  Samuel,  173. 
Willington,    James,    313,    315, 

318. 

Willmore,  144. 
Will's  Coffee  House,  142. 
Wills,  Mr.,  61,  63. 
Wilson,    Richard,    the   painter, 

49,  98»  99.  J44,  235,  301. 
Wilton,  35. 
Wiltshire,  268. 
Windsor,  49,  197,  198. 
Wine,  Gay's,  243. 
Wine    and    Walnuts,     Hard- 
castle's,  230. 
Wine-Cellar,  the,  195. 
Winter,  237. 

Woffington,   Mrs.  Margaret,  34. 
Wokingham,  273. 
Wolcot,  87,  96. 
Woodward,  135,  259. 
Woollett,  144,  146,  295. 


364 


General  Index. 


Word   to  the  Wise,  A,  Kelly's, 

27. 

Wordsworth,  William,  32. 
Worlidge,  the  etcher,  92. 
Wornum,  Mr.,  196. 
Worsdale,     the     Lady     Pent- 

•weazel  of,  50. 
Worsley,  Lady,  299. 
Wright,  Richard,  133. 
Wyatt's  Pantheon,  burning  of, 

46. 
Wylde's  Globe,  276. 


Y. 

YORK,  the  Duke  of,  48,  55,  191, 

193- 

Young,  Edward,  Goldsmith's 
acquaintance  with,  12;  Night 
Thoughts,  Goldsmith's  inter- 
est in,  12  ;  26. 

Z. 

ZOFFANY,  42,  43. 

Zuccarelli,  228. 


DATE  DUE 


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